Time, the ever-elusive and relative beastie that it was, ticked on. That is to say, it ticked on for the Verpine and his precious cargo in a manner perhaps different than it did for others, than it did for those he had left behind on the jungled moon of Endor, for those in great superstar destroyers -- or at least those left to them -- who yet encircled one world or another with their great blockades, or for those ensconced in a particular SSD who pondered the myriad possible fates the galaxy would meet, depending upon which road along Time's path it would finally travel.

This wonderful variance in the space-time continuum was of course known to the insectoid pilot of the little TIE fighter, which howled between the seconds of it in order that the half-conscious Daughter of the Sith be safely carried to a place where she might heal from her wounds.

From her physical wounds, that is; the Verpine could not help but shake his head, clacking his mandibles in a concerned manner as he wondered in what state her mind might be. That all was not right with the Galaxy was something quite obvious to him, and more than likely to her as well: whatever it was that had sent her sans her wonderful powers to the tiny forested moon was something he didn't want to contemplate too deeply at the moment. But more than likely, being something to rip the All from her, it would have been something which could affect her heart, her mind, even her very soul...

Time and thoughts carried him at length to Bespin, where the little TIE was met and, at first much to the dismay of the Verpine, escorted to Tibannopolis. En route to his landing coordinates, however, that dismay lessened, gradually vanishing as a memory of a name once spoken to him came to mind. He would have smiled if he could as he brought the tiny ship in for a landing, there to debark, and after exchanging a few words and a few more coins to the growly-looking Klatooine who met him was finally approached by a towering Besalisk going by the name of Driffane. That hulking being nearly cracked his carapace with the strength of his four-armed hug (meant more than likely as a weapons search); after pulling back to exchange more seeming pleasantries the gentle-being was led to the TIE fighter.

"Inside, needing assistance is She," K'kihl clattered, giving emphasis to the pronoun by both clattering his mandibles and nodding his head emphatically.

"Of awareness to Boss Sorben, this one is."

Even if he possessed eyelids he wouldn't have blinked one iota at his slight fabrication; let Driffane think that Tarnus was the one to have ordered her here for safety. The lack of any outright cruelties being imposed on this gas-world spoke worlds of how those currently in power were behaving toward it; chances were good that Graysith would be accepted without any messy inquiry wanting him to prove this or that.

The name of Sorben Tarnus would be enough, both as an old acquaintance of Driffane's from the man's bounty hunter days, and as his new position in the New Empire.

The Verpine, as usual, was right.

"Of course we'll watch over her!" Driffane's raspy voice boomed across the landing pier. "Not a problem, not a problem at all!"

With that he motioned to his ever-present Klatoonian side-guard, who hulked up with a nod and whisked the Chosen One into his muscular arms.

"Take her to the embassorial suites of the Blue Asteroid," Driffane ordered before turning back to the Verpine.

"Care for some lunch?" he asked as even more of his underlings materialized from the shadows, various appendages upon an even greater variety of weaponry as they joined their fellows in keeping a watchful eye on the little TIE.

K'kihl new a quiet ultimatum when he saw it. Nodding with a clack of mandibles, he was led off into the maze of yet another gas-mining city...

While the unconscious form of Jharmeen Jhin'Dar Q'taro was carried off into yet another.

"K'khil, this is Shawn Petrolu. Just checking in to see how things are progressing there on Endor since we've not heard from you in some time. No news to report here either; all is about the same. Please respond ASAP. Petrolu out."

After completing this brief message, Shawn sent it off along the specified channel to the TIE K'khil had been using...

"All right, youse louses!" His raspy voice grumbled over the other beings, who likewise were releasing their own weaponry to grab onto various and sundry tools.

"You guys oughtta know by now how da Boss likes it! Plant the homers and plant 'em good, ya hear me ya lazy scumbags?"

A generalized vocalization was his only reply as a few of the alien beings hastened to the task, planting not one but three nondescript homing devices where they hoped they would not be discovered. The others turned to the job boss.

"And as for youse, you guys get inta dat ship and set the mole! Da Boss ain't likin' it so well dat strangers just happen to be poppin' up here askin' about 'im; what dis Verpine is really doing here ain't gonna be a secret much longer!"

He threw back his head and howled at his own joke, a rumble of mirth obediently followed by the workmen. Then a couple of them headed to the main hatch of the TIE, and one of them scrambled aboard, calling out over his shoulder to the other to hand him what tools he needed.

Suddenly he popped back out again.

"Hey boss, da comm system is out!" he hollered over to the job boss. That worthy merely cast a scathing look back upon him.

"Well, re-engage it, ya louse!" he hollered back. "Ya can't integrate a comm-mole if'n da system ain't workin'!"

"But boss, it's got parts all missin n' ever'ting!" the other lamented as, cuffing his partner upside the head he headed past him to face the underling boss. "How'm I supposed ta fix it, if'n I don't got all I need?"

The job boss scowled ferociously and planted his ugly mug smack up against that of the whiner.

"Den I'd be gettin whatcha need, and pronto!" he roared. "Da Boss ain't gonna like it if'n dat mole ain't installed, and we ain't got all day to get to it!"

It was a major effort for the worker to keep from hauling off and belting his job boss, but he managed it and pulled away from him. Opening up a link on his own comm, he contacted one of the myriad junkyard Ughnaughts who seemed to inhabit every floating city Bespin possessed.

"Hey, I'm needin' some stuff, and you'd better get it here like yesterday!" Those words were followed by a lengthy list of components, to which the Ughnaught grunted in affirmation before breaking contact. The worker turned back to his boss with a snarl.

"It's comin', it's comin'!" he grumbled as he hauled out a deathstick to puff upon while they waited.

"It better not take forever, ya dirt-for-brains!" The job boss shook his head and fluffed out his facial fur, making himself look even more ferocious.

"And ya'd better be quick as a womprat doin' this; ya gotta dis-assemble the unit back to how it was, remember!"

The other merely ignored him, and continued to puff away.

"Get on it, ya imbicile!" he screamed, angered that this had to happen because it cost him money. Not that he wouldn't get it back from Driffane, in one way or another, but it had to happen. The job boss didn't like being taken by anyone or anything, least of all those scruffy Ughnaughts.

The worker casually ground out his deathstick and took the anti-grav unit in hand.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled as he returned to the TIE, there to take his own turn yelling at his associate who had nothing better to do while waiting than to simply laze about. That low-life snapped (somewhat) to attention and began ruffling his fingers through the heap of electronic components littered across the floating unit.

"Ready!" he finally announced, materials in paws.

The other merely growled something obscene and re-entered the TIE. From there he began a litany of desires, objects which the other duly handed forth. It really didn't take too great a time for the communications panel to be back to specs again; Driffane's men might be a part of the general scum and villany of the universe, but they were good at their jobs, and performed them with alacrity.

Moments later the worker popped out of the TIE again.

"Hey boss!" he hollered, not coming up to the job boss this time but merely remaining by the TIE, appendages a-wave.

"C'mere n' get an earful!"

The job boss frowned more ferociously yet, and stomped over to the little craft.

"Wha'? It better be worth my time!" he shouted before climbing aboard.

Silence ensued, silence broken only by the soft sussuration of a received signal, looping over and over.

He backed out quickly.

"Get a copy of dat, n' see if ya can find where it's comin' from. It sounds fishy ta me, all secretive n' da like; I better clue da Boss in on dis!"

With that he raised his own comm-link to his lips and sent a call out to Driffane on his private, scrambled frequency, while the other being went to work on what he had just been told to do.

"Umm, 'scuse me," he said politely enough before departing from the undoubtedly confused Verpine to go stake a claim in the male-being's room. The comm chirped an worbled, scarcely able to be heard. When it had quieted, he raised it to his lips, actually brushed them lightly against the surface.

"You got that copied?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

Squeech. Wurbble. Bleep.

"Yeah, ok. You got it traced n' all?"

Woofle. Blingo. Whine.

His eyes popped open wide at what he heard.

The Outer Rim! And not just any ol' place in the outer rim; Dantooine was out there, after all. But this message came from that wild and unhabited sector, that place of mystery and myth, of ancient, frightening tales snaking along the spacelanes, some such tales being fairly recent.

Such as rumors that something, something BIG had happened to the Impys out there...

He blinked, cast a furtive glance about himself, then raised the comm to his lips again. This was big, really big, big enough that he probably should be passing it along to his own boss, wherever in the galaxy she might be at the moment.

He fidgeted, then smiled as inspiration struck. If anyone in the whole universe could find her, he knew exactly who that someone was.

The comm squawked for instructions, breaking his momentary glee.

"Ummm, make sure you got good copies of that message. Then delete--"

He paused a moment, dithering. If the Verpine should ever re-engage the comm system himself, how could he be certain he wouldn't find a ghost's trail of message deletion? He knew Verpines were damned good at what they did; he didn't want to take any chances.

"Leave it alone; just dismantle the unit exactly as it was. Good job; there's half-day's credit and a full day off for the lot of ya!"

With that he closed the connection, only to open another. A quick call was sent out over the spaceways to yet another private frequency known to him and a few select others.

"Don't answer me back. Just get to Tibannopolis asap!" he finished before closing the connection and returning to the table.

Time had passed quite uneventfully for the little Bothan, time which she had managed to put to fairly good use. Her newly upgraded ship was more than a dream to handle -- faster than she ever thought the ol' girl could be! -- if something of a nightmare to keep out of the hands of the various and sundry pirates whose paths she had crossed as she tootled about, simply enjoying life, going from system to system, looking for odd-jobs to pay for her ever beloved "blue stuff" to which she had become nearly addicted.

Then a peculiar chime interrupted her easy-going -- if boring -- existence, with a promise that life was certainly going to become a LOT more interesting.

Find where Mitra had dug herself a hole, and pass an encoded message to her? Then report back to Driffane, all for 800 thousand credits?

Piece of cake.

"A piece of cake, Sir," she replied politely before signing off and returning to her well-frequented barstool.

No more blue stuff; time to get back to doing what she did best!

"Thanks, Al," she called out to the bartender as she tossed him a handful of coins and left the establishment. She liked Bespin, Cloud City was so peaceful, almost surreal, floating in the sky the way it did. While she was thankful for the unexpected windfall, she hoped this job would be exactly as she promised Driffane: a piece of cake.

Surprisingly enough, she was getting to like life in the slow lane...

But now. It was time to speed things up.

Heading to the pad where Heaven's Forbiddance was berthed, she climbed aboard and requested a departure vector. Moments later she was airborne, heading out through the upper atmosphere, throught the ionosphere with it's accompanying crackling interference, and then on into the first wisps of space beyond.

There she put in a heading to Sullust, and soon afterward disappeared in the star-stretched lines of hyperspace.

((OOC: Follow Minna into Dark Destiny in the "CSWU" forums, thank you.))

The man leaned in, apologetic look on his face.

He paused, manipulatory appendage outstretched, and looked up to fix a green-skinned individual with his multi-faceted eyes.

"K'kihl?" he queried, cocking his head a bit to one side.

"Oh that's great news," he said. "I'm a page from central office of Sector 3. The healing center in our sector has been trying to find you for the last standard hour. There's a emergency situation for a patient registered with your name as the contact."

The man cast an unsteady look at K'kihl's company, then smiled back to the Verpine.

"Is there?" he queried in reply, carefully setting down the utensil upon which was affixed another bit of overly-roasted nerf. His head tilted a bit to the side as he cast the Verpine equivalent of a sidelong glance toward Driffane, who was chomping heartily away on the other side of the table, seemingly oblivious to what was happening mere feet from his very nose.

K'kihl was not stupid, nor was he deaf. He had, after all, been standing smack dab next to the hulking Besalisk when that worthy had ordered his lackey to carry his charge to the embassadorial suites of the Blue Asteroid. But where that place was, exactly, K'kihl really didn't know.

What he did realize was the fact that the term "ambassadorial suite" in no way equated to "healing center." Unless, of course, it was code utilized by Driffane, although why he would have deemed it necessary to use said code utterly escaped the logical thinking processes of the insectoid.

Then another thought struck him.

Perhaps the Lady had been transferred to the healing center after having first been placed in the suites? There was a way to verify the words this stranger was saying.

"To a healing center, this patient was taken? From where?" he asked politely, conveying a sense of concern and restrained urgency as best he could.

Another glance around the table and the man leaned in closer. "They paid in advance, sir, and specified that the patient should be placed into the care of 'the dark lady', listing you as a contact. I know no more, except that the patient is rather -- unusual."

The silent look from the Verpine led the man to sign and lean closer still.

It is-- it is... material. A drowsy portion of her mind shook itself enough to become aware of at least this little thing. It awoke further, sending a demand to investigate. Her fingers responded sluggishly but curled further, grasping the coolness and playing with it a bit.

It is material, the drowsy portion of her awareness confirmed as another wash of lucidity rose up within her. It suddenly occurred to her that she was in a horizontal position; from somewhere nearby came soft, steady ticks and whooshes, as if something mechanical was... was...

She hadn't any idea at all what those sounds meant; this of course required further investigation. At the insistent prompts coming from her brain, she dragged her eyes open, slid them to the side, and found the source of the soft noise. It was indeed some kind of machine; a thin line snaked from it, coursed its way across the gap to the bed--

I am laying upon a bed.

--and disappeared beneath the coverings that encompassed her slim form. Lucidity strengthened with an attack of questions; groaning, she found the strength to sit up and did so, letting the sheets fall down to her lap. Blinking, she raised a hand to her forehead--

The line, it is adhered to my hand...

--and took a look about herself.

That she was not in a medical center as first supposed was evident by the richness of the decor surrounding her. Thick carpeting padded the floor, well-crafted art adorned the walls. The bed upon which she was laid was made of richly glowing greelwood, covered with silks and satins. A warm-looking furry coverlet lay folded upon a nearby chair; nearby a simple but elegant glass table sported a silver tankard and glass.

She blinked with confusion, trying to make sense of it all.

What had happened? It seemed she had the strangest dream, a dream filled with strange horned people, red of skin, fanged and clawed. And she... she was of some importance to them, they who were- were-- Sith--?

But that was silly. Sith were not demonic in appearance, although they had certainly proved themselves to be in character. Something must have happened to her when-- when--

Oh yes, when she went into the cave, following Father. That was it, that was why she had such a silly dream: they were investigating the Sith; Father was so adamant about proving his speculations to be truth. But everyone knew that just wasn't so.

Silly indeed. Of what possible interest would she, a human female, be to a race of powerful beings? Wait-- something else, there was something else...

Else. Else... ness. Something about that word, it linked up with something else, something different, something that affected everybody in the universe, everything, all that ever was...

All.

She blinked again, removed her hand from her forehead and studied it as if the answers she was seeking were implanted upon her skin. Waved it about, feeling silly. When nothing happened, downright embarrassment reddened her wan cheeks, pushing her back against her pillows once more.

Silly--

She sighed then and closed her eyes. Soon, she was certain, Father or maybe Galen would come in and explain to her what had happened to place her in this situation. But in the meantime, she would get a little more rest.

Muzziness descended upon feathered wings, once again scooping her up and taking her into the realm of darkness.

And of dreams.

They stopped before her, multi-colored eyes staring at her with unspeakable meaning, unguessable intent.

Four beings. All strangers to her, yet she somehow knew them:

Lords Roan, Aelvedaar, Q'utaro... and Darth Wicked.

Once coming to a halt, they moved no more. They spoke no word... other than what their eyes were telling her. A wealth of memories and feelings and recognition burst upon her then, carried by the look in their eyes, and she actually staggered a brief step back before the onslaught. But even as she staggered, she knew precisely what was meant here, and what was being offered.

For it is for this that the motes within the universe scrabble. This, or--

She got a grip upon herself, straightened, and shot a meaningful look back into each pair of glowing eyes, lingeringly, one at a time. Paused while the universe revolved about its axis, considering.

Some would find succor in the mere offering... while others would reach for the stars, to put themselves against those flaring entities, screaming I am here! I am! I shall be! into their uncaring, nuclear faces. Some would be replete with the crumbs of miniscule contentment offered to one... others...

Not.

Her eyes darkened then as resolve thunked into her chest, spreading outward there from a tight little knot of growing darkness. Deep within her breast, the Beast raised its head in growing question and delight, moving aside a paw which had for so long hoarded a secreted little kernel... only to discover the kernel simply wasn't there. Instead a great fluttering of dustlike motes rushed upward, briefly dazzling and delightful to the eye, before they fizzled into obscurity somewhere within her psyche.

The Beast leaped to its feet, tossed back its head, and yowled in reply to the small, and effectively squelched, challenge.

Graysith smiled slowly.

"Not love," she uttered each word as though it carried the entire weight of planetary evolution upon its back. Perhaps it did. And it simply wasn't enough.

"I will take no profferred crumbs!"

With that she moved forward, rounding the foursome who merely stood there, turning as she did but not so quickly that she couldn't circle completely around them once. While the eyes with which each had looked upon her were lightened with the love each held for her... behind their backs each held a variety of weapons in his hands.

Her eyes slit more, a sneer curled her lips.

"Indeed...." she agreed then.

Then with a motion as quick as the explosion of tauri winds from a birthing star, she lashed out with her Claw.

The foursome dissolved into fluttering motes... to disperse within the darkness...

Jharmeen Jhin'dar -- and at the moment unbeknownst to her Q'utaro -- moaned, tossing upon the bed, sending the now sweat-slicked covers into a rumple before they were finally tossed off altogether. They landed on the floor in a sodden heap.

She didn't know. She didn't care. She was too lost in the dream...

...a dream that, being more than simply a dream, began to reach out to her, to pull insistently, to demand her attention, crying out to her faltering memory.

That in itself was something rather remarkable, considering who and what he was. For the Verpines were known to be not only one of the most logical races in the galaxy, they were also one of the most anal-retentive.

Even the tiniest discrepency concerning something known to them as being factual was enough to send them flying into analytical mode, inquisitive minds awhirl. Thus it was that K'kihl's initial reaction to all this was an initial raising of internal warning flags, followed instantly by an overwhelming sense of distrust.

But... there was something about the fact that this greenie was speaking of beings who more than likely were of the race of the Sith. And who but a very select few actually knew of their existance? Other than those who occupied this elite circle, beings he knew by name and by companionship, there was only one little loophole that could have led to others knowing of the Sith.

Aboard Hornett, another of this race had briefly arrived. Or so he had heard. Boss Sorben had known of them, of course, but he most certainly would keep his mouth shut. That was his modus operandi, after all.

Unless, of course, somehow Lord Aelvedaar had been lifted from the little moon, and had directed those who had located him to follow along to Bespin. Yet, that didn't ring quite true, either.

And so he dithered, unsure as what to do next. If it had been his place to do so he would have suggested a medical team to go with this green-skinned stranger, to see to the well-being of the purported Sith victim, a victim of who or what he suddenly realized he hadn't an inkling of an idea.

He dithered further, then decided to go with a delaying tactic.

"This patient, sick is he? Or injured?"

He cocked his head, keeping his body completely still so as not to send out any body language signals denoting the depth of his discomfiture and uncertainty, striving instead to ooze an aura of curiosity blended with concern.

The man paused, chewing his upper lip.

K'kihl would have blinked if he could, so much did he yearn to outright ask the being a few pointed questions. But who knew where that might lead; he also couldn't help but feel that the general modus opperandi of Driffane was to feign ignorance... and glean every last lick of information that he could in that seemingly blissful vapidity.

Long do I dawdle, to gain more information myself do I attempt in this, he thought to himself. Much to this Beskalisk, now is being shown.

Not good.

He made a choice, one based on what to him appeared to be the lesser of two evils. At least in leaving with the green-skinned stranger he would be freed of the constant presence of Driffane. At least he hoped.

Turning to that worthy, he shrugged a chitinous shoulder toward the green skinned being.

"Of need is this one, in me with him going," he said simply, waving a clawed manipulatory appendage in the messenger's direction.

"Information as to where placed the Lady is, I am needing..."

Even though he strove to keep the tonal qualities of his voice as neutral as possible, he knew the question inherent in his latter statement was ringing out as clearly as the convection currents of a star.

"Ah, g'wan wit' ya," he slobbered around a mouthful of nerf. "Yer lady friend is in the ambassadorial wing of the Blue Asteroid, Section 34J, level 6."

He paused a moment to wipe a greasy hand against his shirtfront. Then after a bit of fumbling in his vest pocket, he drew out a small comm unit. He tossed it diffidently at the Verpine, who caught it with one claw.

"Here ya go. Ya c'n contact me if'n ya get yerself lost or anyt'ing."

Then he pulled his attention completely away from the pair and focused on his meal once more. Little did the Verpine know, but the comm unit was also an individual tracking device, one with a permanently opened transmit channel. Any conversation that transpired between the insectoid and the greenie would be automatically picked up by his henchmen, who then would be able to report whatever would transpire between the two of them.

He smiled smugly, and raised a brow.

One down, there is...

"Many thanks, to you I give," he said politely as he finished rising. Coming fully upright, he dabbed a napkin delicately against his mandibles before turning to the greenie.

That which some have come to think of as Which Was reared its wonderful one-ness back into the omnipotent non-ness of what it was/wasn't; cradled its quite unique non-ness into the accepting arms of the all-encompassing one-ness and let go a little, virtual smile. It took a look about its non-self, taking in the grandeur of ALL there was, the ALL of which some little portions of it were now being allowed to awaken to the fact that their gradually progressing perceptions of it were on the right track.

There was a time Man thought HE was the center of it all. In response to that silliness time was given; Man then thought his little celestial body was. Then his little stellar; oh, such wonderful beings those stellars. Perhaps one day their language would finally be deciphered by the other pieces at play.

He/she/it shook a figurative head, smiled more smugly at the Progression Of Things, which albeit slow was at least on an accurate track.

One day those little motes awoke to the fact that there was more, oh indeed quite more; their tunneled little view expanded its paradigms and took a leap of faith.

Stellars existed, vast quantities of them in wonderful pin-wheeling units. At first only each individual one was recognized by the motes inhabiting it, but slowly, bit by bit, in a manner yet evolving, each little bit grew cognizant of the fact that there were more, there were hundreds, millions, billions of those units, each in turn encompassing billions of stellar brothers.

That the stellars were the true Life of the Universe was not yet understood by the little motes dwelling in the All-ness; it was enough that they now looked out toward a universe with tiny eyes that were gradually opening in recognition of the fact that perhaps the better term was in fact Universes...

"Hey, unfair move! That's partiality!" The cry from him/her/itself came from behind him/her/itself.

That-Which-Was took up some stuff of what is, coalesed it into the brilliant ultraviolet-and-chrome Eyes of which he/she/it had become quite fond, and cast them behind his/her/itself.

A figurative sigh was heaved.

"We hoped we wouldn't have noticed..." it non-said, then muttered in further rejoinder, "But a fair move had been made."

Nothing back but a snort; he/she/it sighed, and then waved a figurative hand.

The fabric of Stuff which wove together existence of both forms, be it living or non, rippled, gathered into an immensely tiny little bunch, and exploded outward in the virtual equivalent of a Big Bang.

Here and there certain motes began waking up, some in surprise, some with regret, but one by one those certain few began to wake up as if from a deep slumber.

The Other still wasn't satisfied. "We're not just giving it away!" it protested, the non-words loud and born in total effrontery.

That-Which-Was merely snorted.

"Of course not. Balance must be maintained; it must always be maintained. We know that, and some of us still know it at different degrees, at different levels than others.

"We'll see now..."

The Other muttered beneath its non-breath. "We still think you're making up the Rules as you go along! But we'll wait.

Where was she?

Memory returned with the force of an explosion, sending the Glyph on her brow into brilliant and exultant life. If anyone passing outside beneath her window had looked up, they would have seen a blast of vibrant energy lashing out into the atmosphere of Bespin. But as luck would have it, the Blue Asteroid, being rather posh, was situated in the "outskirts" of Tibannopolis, backed by a low wall over which nothing could be seen beyond the ever-present clouds that enveloped the planet below.

The sudden flash flared out, only to dissipate among the gas molecules in the air, and vanish.

She took a deep breath, swung her legs around; winced as the movement brought sudden pain along her back, bringing in turn sympathetic pains which erupted from other parts of her battered body. She cast a look down at her hands, then quickly forced herself out of bed and over to a nearby mirror where she took a careful stock of her naked body.

So much injury--!

No matter; once learned, even though she was yet learning, that bit of the All which she had in fact mastered came to her aid in a response as natural as breathing. Her laboring lungs quieted as bones knit, muscles loosened their spasms, torn nails began to heal. The tiny particles of carbon and silicon and oxygen that she siphoned from her surroundings didn't even notice the loss as with those particles she instinctively finished the healing of her body.

Completing the act, she turned from the mirror with a smile. Now to--

She paused a moment, confusion settling down around her in a fuzzy cloud.

To... what?

Memory remained obstinate, unwilling to provide an answer of any sort. Although she had mended her physical body, there was more to being back to normal than repaired body parts.

She nodded at herself, recognizing the wisdom in further rest, to let her mind heal from exhaustive injury it had sustained by whatever it was that had caused her to lose contact with The All.

A short nap, that is all I need, she told herself as she returned to the bed, her eyes drooping, her body drifting off into restful slumber even before she had the chance to pull up the sheets.

Shayla.

"Shayla..."

Instinctively, she let the call leach out into the the beyond, into the Great Expanse of Out There, seeking the familiarity of the one whom she had come to love more than a sister.

More than her own sister...

Why this was suddenly of such importance to her, was something she could not begin to fathom. Whether it was something of meaning to her own heart and soul, or something else; all she knew was that there was a great and sudden Void needing to be filled, and that nothing would fill it as would the young human she had long ago taken under her wing.

Why had she done this?

The thought suddenly struck her, reaching down deep inside her in the attempt to wring her inside out. She clenched her teeth unconsciously, battling against it.
She needed to be taught.

The excuse filled her being, mocking her. She bowed her head in the darkness, suddenly feeling bereft, knowing that there was more, that there had been a reason why she had taken the young jedi padawan under her wing, only to change her world view so suddenly, so radically.

Yes. There was a reason. But... what?

Suddenly she found herself on her feet, the soft blanket and sheets flung aside like spindrift, her hand clenching beside her slim body which suddenly began shaking as though with the ague.

Shayla! Palomir!!

She crumpled to the floor of the posh suites in which she had been detained, her focus upon anything but the richness of her surroundings.

What is wrong with me? she couldn't help but wonder, sudden tears in her eyes.

Why does not anyone answer my call?

Feeling alone, she crumpled further into herself, and became but a small shadow in the greater shadow of the night.

Emptiness abounded...

She quieted then, her eyes remaining vague and distant...

...and out of the darkness a voice, one so longed for that she didn't even know it, rang out in the very fabric of Shayla's being. And it was so very, very real...

And full of heart-ache that matched Shayla's own.

Shayla knew it had been there all along. But she hadn't truly felt it until now.

The voice, and the connection...they were real.

Without even thinking, Shayla responded to it.

Jharmeen! My love, I hear you! Where are you? I miss you so!

Phalomir hoped he had sent his thoughts through. He knew Jharmeen had created a link with him, using the connection with all things to find him anywhere. He did not know exactly how she had accomplished this but at the moment he cared little for mechanics of it all. She was alive, and her powers must have returned. That itself should mean that she could heal herself, and she must be well.

Phalomir spoke words to ShaRhylla, but they came from his head and not his heart. That particular space was tied up with the link that connected him with Jharmeen. It had more to say, more to send, and it spoke freely through the link.

Jharmeen... I will return to you. My dear, dear love...

Shayla! Phalomir! Oh, my Sister, and my love...!

The rejoining words shot back unthinkingly as she took a moment to clamber to her feet. Once steadily upon then, she cast a glance about herself. It was as if up until this very moment she had been living in a fog, a miasma of one-ness, of alone-ness, of being separate from ALL and everyone and everything within it, and now with the return of her abilites she was suddenly reconnected. The jolt was lightning fast, painfully sweet...

And utterly, utterly welcome.

She paused, sensing along the link, and found to her dismay that a bifurcation existed.

They are not together, wherever they are, she thought to herself. Pursing her lips, she paused further, debating as to what it was she should do.

First of all, shadowy memories reminded her that K'kihl was quite probably somewhere about; at least she thought that was the case. Someone had taken her to this place, she thought it was him. But to be truthful, she couldn't be certain; that shady memory was umbrellaed by pain-ridden confusion and half-consciousness. At any rate, she had never created a link with the Verpine; thus she was unable to open one now. While she wanted nothing more than to open a rift in the fabric of time and space and step through to join those she loved, she didn't know if by doing so she would be putting the insectoid in any sort of risk, if indeed he was around at all to face anything. If nothing else, if he was here and returned to find her gone, wouldn't he be worried? Perhaps she should attempt to discover his whereabouts...

But then, what if he wasn't here? To whom then should she go? Every cell in her body ached to return to Phalomir, but there was Shayla's dear, sweet voice too, so much as it was so very, very long ago, a musical utterance in tones not felt for far too long a time. What had happened between them, to them? Her brow wrinkled a moment as she pondered; then she hmmphed and softened her expression.

This I can easily discover later; now the problem is:

Where do I go? It is but by a thought that I can return to either Shayla's side or Phalomir's. But how do I find K'kihl here on...

She cut herself short as another dilemma presented itself: she hadn't any idea where in all the universe she was. All she knew was that it was a very nice room, poshly furnished, and that someone had gone out of their way to make certain she was comfortable and well taken care of.

Undoubtedly to heal...

She cast a quick look upon herself, smirking just a bit when that look revealed her healthy old self again. Not a lick of any injury existed on her person anywhere she could see; a quick running of hands over her face proved it to be as unmarred as the rest of her body. She took a breath, feeling hale, whole, and totally fit.

Just... totally out of the loop about certain, very important things.

So she did the only thing she could. Closing her eyes, she let her head drop forward a bit, and addressed both Phalomir and Shayla as one, reaching out, digging the Link more deeply into their minds and souls, branching out rootlets from the initial tap so as to never let go of them again.

But something about the connection with Shayla made her pause again. There seemed to be a sly little aura niggling somewhere about her; she wasn't sure, of course, but somehow it didn't seem to be coming from her young Adept directly. But from somewhere or something close to her. She opened her thoughts, preparing to inquire about this, then shut them off quickly. Now was the time to gather information; then a course of travel could be mapped out.

Wh-where am I? Where are you? What has happened? Are you all right? she asked of them both, hoping someone would provide her with an answer so she would know in which direction she should proceed, which would be the most correct for the Good of All That Is.

...although most of her attention was admittedly given to the latter.

I...I do not know where you are, only that you were hurt and taken away for care by K'khil to a place Phalomir claims[/b he does not know...are youi well? I was with him when I was taken by...

Shayla trailed mentally.

By a Dark Phalomir who is connected with the Realms. We are in hyperspace, but I do not know where. All I want is to return and learn from your teaching once more...

Phalomir let Panthar speak but focused inwardly upon the voice entering his mind from across the dimensions. It filled his heart with joy to hear this voice, so familiar and close.
My love, you were injured on Endor. Our powers were blocked somehow, but K’khil managed to find us – I sent you with him to find a medical facility. Bespin was the nearest -- that should be where you are. I hope you are safe. Shayla may be in peril – Shayla, can you hear me? Are we linked through Jharmeen?

In a protective move, Shayla unconciously pulled back from the connection with Jharmeen upon hearing Phalomir's voice within and Dark Phalomir's voice without...

...and for much the same reason on both counts. An image, one of Phalomir's hands raised to the sky, royal robes flowing from him and arrogance plastered on his face as Jharmeen, child in her arms, fell back.

"Wait!!"

The cry transcended space and time in reflexive response to Shayla's attempt to cut out all thoughts of Phalomir--

Or indeed, both of them.

The Chosen Daughter reached out along the link to her, feeling her distrust mingled not without some fear, feeling the strength and love pouring out to her at the same time from Lord Phalomir... and both sensations overlain with the tiniest, slyest hint of...

Somehow muffled indiscretion.

She paused, cutting off her own cry to Shayla, knowing that both were linked to her, and through her, to each other. A great upwelling rush of sorrow filled her heart to feel the young Adept's mistrust of Phalomir; she yearned to reply, to assuage her fears. But there was that strange, softly insistent niggle of something not right yet, that hung over Shayla like a shroud.

And tickling behind it was the briefest flash of something, an image; she hadn't quite been able to make it out clearly, but somehow felt she was in it, and consumed with sorrow.

So she paused further, chewing upon her lip.

"Shayla," she began at last. "According to what my Lord Phalomir is saying, I am in one of the cloud cities on Bespin. I am not certain where you are yourself; Phalomir appears to be... Elsewhere.

"K'kihl is here somewhere; I must somehow ascertain his whereabouts, for if I should just depart from this place he would be worried, and might find trouble. Once I have made contact with him, I will send him--"

She cut herself abruptly off, wondering just where exactly she should send him.

"--to K'eel Doba," she finally decided before continuing.

"Take a care, my sister; I feel there is more afoot than the Dark Phalomir who plagues you. I trust you have the ability to fend him off; and be not afraid of my love."

She paused a momemt, still caught in the toss-up of whom to go to.

"When I have found K'kihl and have sent him on his way, I shall go to Phalomir. If he is truly Elsewhere, he will need my assistance."

Another pause: how in S'slan's Creation did he find himself in the Elseness? A shrug, a push of that query to the back of her mind, and she continued once more.

"Do not worry; we shall be together soon enough. But my dear, find out what you can of this Dark One. And-- watch yourself."

With that she silenced, quieting the connection until it was nothing but an electric hum betwixt the three of them. With no further ado, she left her posh surroundings, and went out on the hunt for K'kihl.

Then she stretched back along the link she shared with Jharmeen. I went to hyperspace within the Elseness. The Dark Phalomir. He wants an heir...

A sense of great, impending danger washed across every cell in her being. Instinctively she reached out to reply, to warn Shayla... when she stopped. Clenching her fists at her sides, oblivious to the other hotel passers-by who in their passing were murmuring to themselves and giving each other odd looks, she simply shut her eyes, striving to find...

The Big Picture. There was always a Big Picture....

A little flash of another picture her young Adept hadn't quite successfully prevented from revealing now came to her: flashes of a darkly triumphant Phalomir, and of herself, a look of despairing sadness on her face, holding in her arms a tiny babe...

But that meant something else, something other, according to what Phalomir had revealed. It was his own battle with his own inner demons, a battle he had won.

Or so she thought. Then another thought struck her.

This Dark Phalomir Shayla now found herself with... how did she know that he was such? By what evidence could she base such an acceptance? True, the Dark Ones were cunning in the extreme; she knew how they could creep within one, offering this and that in the attempt to sway their victim into believing them...

But how could she be certain it really wasn't her beloved? Did he truly eradicate all the demons he carried within? Or did that attempt merely wash him clean enough to attract the One or Ones who ruled in Hell...

She actually swayed with indecision. Every iota of her being yearned to fly to Shayla, to assist her against the one who, in either manner, was indeed their foe.

But then-- was he?

Her own teachings flew back at her, yet the relief of a Big Picture concerning this remained maddeningly elusive.

She was on her own.

Her eyes flew open, the Glyph on her forehead flashing into protest, sending radiance splashing against the walls of the hall she was in, yanking them from there mundanity even as the few other patrons hanging about shrank back from her in fear and wonder. She smiled hesitantly, fought to control the strength within, which insisted more and more strongly that she go to Shayla.

But... what if that was what the Darkness, be it either Dark or merely corrupted Phalomir, wanted.

She clenched her fists harder, her nails sinking into her palms. The pain from that was welcome respite from uncertainty; it brought her back to reality, giving her the strength she needed to reach out, to try and sense anything else she could in the vicinity of her sister. But all she could pick up was a general miasma of dark; no word or intention could be gleaned other than what Shayla would actively send back to her.

"I-- I cannot come," she thought back, instantly amending the reply: "... yet. Hold fast, my sister; discern what it is this one wants from you. Why does he need an heir?"

((OOC: The reply to Shayla cross-posts to Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This in the "Jedi/Sith" forums, thank you.))

A memory was niggling of something she had been told once pulled at the corners of Shayla's mind. Seeking to bring clarity to that memory, she reached back out to Jharmeen.

He says the heir he seeks is a small child that has been placed within the Elseness that he wants me to retrieve from there...

What was going on inside her, however, was anything but.

"No!" She could not keep the alarm from her "voice" as the single word arrowed back via the Link. "That child... it was mine, mine by Recinis, destined to become Dark Lord of the Warriors. But during my stay on Dagobah my body could not properly nourish it; I-- I lost it, and placed it within a coccoon of my love for my husband into the Elseness that it would not die."

She couldn't help frowning at herself, for a shadowy sense of guilt was beginning to rise. Who was she, to use her powers for her own sake in thus a manner? Was she a Goddess, that she would prevent the natural death which would have been the destiny of her child? Had placing the too-young bit of life into such a state been the result of nothing more than her own vanity?

Had she taken into acount The Bigger Picture, that which she had touted again and again to Shayla? Apparently not, for now the quasi-life of that youngling seemed to be at risk.

"You must not do this, sister. You must not let this Phalomir retrieve my child. For if this were to happen, surely it would die."

Meanwhile she reached back along the link she shared with Graysith.

I understand, my dear sister, she then thought to her, emotions of shared loss and understanding also flowing along the Link. Still, I am here for a reason...

...and I think I need to follow this through. Please, trust me.

Nothing can bring harm to my youngling; NOTHING!

Passers-by shrank back from her at this, uttering frightened mumbles as ultraviolet radiance cascaded all about them. With some effort Jharmeen brought her instinctively reactonary anger back under control, lowering her face in the struggle so as to further mask the glowing light in the shadow of her disarrayed locks. At length the Glyph relented, and she felt a semblance of calm begin to descend upon her. It brought logic tagging along in its wake.

Even so, she wanted nothing more than to fly to Shayla's side, the Verpine be damned. She was certain; no, simply positive her young Adept was in mortal danger, a danger that perhaps she couldn't sense as easily as her Teacher did, and that coming along a shared Link from an extraneous source. She bit her teeth, struggling against the threat of her Glyph again flaring up, struggling against rising anger and fear...

But stopped, and forced herself to listen to the quiet little voice now whispering in her soul.

How well she remembered her own little altercations with her own Teacher and loved one, the great Dark Lord of the Sorcerers Lord Aelvedaar. How well she could see in her mind's eye the pattern she had presented to him as over and over she strove to prove to him that she was ready, that she had the ability, that he had taught her well enough that he should let her go...

A little smile came over her features at this. Indeed, the time did finally come when he did let her go, and that was when M'wonBo'o had come to her.

Another thought struck her, dragging her off trajectory. Shayla's tuk'ata; that time on Korriban she had indeed gone off against Jharmeen's advice, and indeed had returned astride the beautiful felinoid. But a slight difference tingled in the aura the quasi-sentient creature emanated; at the time Jharmeen had wondered if the pair would remain together as true soul-mates, as true Blood Hunt Companions. Or had the animal, being young, simply given in to her strong-willed Adept, and had not really bonded with her in a kill, in the blood-sharing, as with what tradition dictated should happen between Sith and tuk'ata through the millennia?

Was this another similar case? Was Shayla being strong-willed, as certain in her own ability to see this thing through as Graysith herself had sworn she had been, years ago when Lord Aelvedaar had indeed let her loose on The Hunt? Was there factual evidence to truly substantiate that will? Or was this simply a repetition of what had happened to Shayla in the Canyon of the Dark Lords on Korriban?

Only this time, instead of risking coming back empty-handed, she was instead playing sabaac with her very life?

So she struggled with herself, wondering if Shayla truly was ready, truly had enough of her Teachings not only under her belt but assimilated into her soul to see her through whatever the Darkness was planning upon throwing at her.

She waffled...

And sighed.

Lord Aelvedaar had let her go, and she had performed. She had never let Shayla go, but instead the young woman had taken flight on her own. Never with her blessing; perhaps that was all that was finally needed in the long run.

Raising her head, she sent a final thought back to her sister.

"I trust in you, Shayla. But in whatever you do, remember there is always two sides to every coin, and that there is always the Bigger Picture to consider. Sometimes the right thing to aim for means doing the wrong thing, or following the path we do not wish to travel upon.

"Keep me appraised; I will join you when I have safely delivered K'kihl to K'eel Doba.

"Good luck, my sister. I love you."

With that she let the Link settle back into a quietly thrumming communications connection, and finally managed to bind up her hair. Her Glyph now faded to a shadow upon her forehead, she hastened down the corridor, down several flights of stairs, and then out onto the sidewalk beyond as she exited The Blue Asteroid altogether. Hesitating a moment to consider, she finally set out for the most logical place she could think of where she might find the Verpine:

The public landing bays of this particular cloud city, where she hoped to find him wandering about the earth-bound ships. If he happened to be inside theirs, whichever one that might be, well...

She'd just have to start asking questions. There couldn't be that many Verpines on Bespin, after all.

((OOC: The reply goes out to Shayla in Sweet Dreams Are Made of This in the "Sith/Jedi" forums, thank you.))

...she likewise knew that Shayla needed this time on her own, to stretch her own wings. To fly.

Be it one way or another.

So firming her jawline she hastened out into the streets of the floating city, pausing thereout to take a look about herself, knowing instinctively the best place to find a Verpine, but not knowing how to find such.

If the Verpine was indeed alive.

With a small frown she thrust that possibility away from herself, and set out to find anything approaching either a small shipyard or at least a Municipal Docking Port. If ever there would be a place to find K'kihl, she knew that would be it.

So she spent a few hours wandering, reaching quietly out into this mind and that, trying to find such a place. But she was having difficulties; most of the Bespin people she came upon along the way had thoughts of nothing much other than personal trivialities, shopping dilemmas, and anticipation of a hot tub and drink at the end of their long work day. With something of a start she realized it was now indeed that time of day when people were hastening to their homes, ready to eat, to play, to relax, leaving the mundanity of their work behind them for another day.

With a little sigh she wished those were the only worries she herself had to entertain.

It was at this direct moment that from afar, through the Link she had with Shayla, somethng of the young woman's selfness came filtering through to her. There was a strength of determination, an even stronger belief in herself, not a little curiosity... but twining insidiously in and through and around these emotions was something else.

Something... else.

It carried upon its back the taint of fear, of death, of blood and wanton destruction and reverence for non-life. She frowned now, seeking gently back herself, probing, trying not to alert Shayla to her presence within her mind but needing in turn to know what was happening to her. What she was going through, what she was experiencing...

What she was feeling.

Her eyes widened and her Glyph burst forth in protest when she realized the depth of the strange touch she was sensing. It seemed more, was perhaps more than a guard being set up against which the Darkness, unknowing, might slither.

And unless Shayla was more adept than she realized, that sensation could only mean one thing...

She gasped, staggered sideways a bit, and laid a steadying hand against a nearby wall. Then, unable to do anything else, she simply bowed her head, ane wept.

Outwardly, Shayla's aura was as cool as ice. Inwardly, a jolt of fear shot through her very being, one so significant that she knew it could be felt through the bond she shared with Jharmeen. For the briefest of moments Shayla clung to that link like it was a lifeline...

...for perhaps it was at that...

...and let a wisp of a memory pass between she and Jharmeen, of a time before the return of the Sith when she first truly believed she was the Chosen Sister Jharmeen called her. On that day, Jharmeen had sent her away to save her from Roan's anger, and in doing so had perhaps risked her own self.

Now, this, for you, Shayla thought.

There was simply no turning back now, and Shayla knew that deep within her heart. So she stretched out one final but potentially critical moment and reached out to her link with Graysith.

She was impacted with pain and anguish so deep it made her physically shiver despite herself.

When the time comes, I trust you will do what you must. For now, perhaps I can in this act save you, my Chosen sister.

Shayla's thoughts paused momentarily.

Not that we once were Sisters, but that we are.

Letting this thought travel through that cherished link, Shayla savored the connection for a moment...

Each passing second nailed her heart to her spine, causing it to pound in return. Each minute emotion she felt streaming to her across the Link she maintained with Shayla stabbed that nail more deeply into her psyche, for with it she could clearly sense the cloying tendril of non-life which coiled along with it.

No. Not non-life; a rock would be considered non-life. This was an anathema to life itself, anti-life if you will; it crept insidiously along the Link, reaching from the Darkness outward into the Light, searching for bits of itself that were firmly embedded in the thing living entities call the Universe, seeking to entwine itself into her own being...

She shuddered against the ice, raised her head in defense of it even though fear and pain for Shayla's sake fought strongly to welcome it. She had just managed to battle it down, in fact, when Shayla's last horrible words came whispering to her:

"Now this, for you..." followed fairly shortly by, "When the time comes, I trust you will do what you must. For now, perhaps I can in this act save you, my Chosen Sister..."

Here eyes shot wide open, brilliant violet against the encroaching Night.

"But-- my dear Sister, I do not need saving! I am in no peril!"

Passersby paused in their scurry, turning now to gaze awkwardly at the crazy lady standing against the wall, one hand reaching out as if to grasp something unobtainable, her unsettling, soul-piercing words ringing in the air. Jharmeen blinked, working her mouth a little as the realization struck her that not only had she spoken her last cry to Shayla aloud, but the Link along which those words were intended to travel had simply shut down.

She had no means to connect to Shayla. The connection was just...

Gone.

Her clasped hands raised to her lips, her unseeing eyes dismissing those about her who in turn were struggling mightily to dismiss her, as she put forth every effort to re-establish that precious Link. To no avail; it was almost as if Something had reached in with a serendipitously well-timed helping hand, and wrenched away its very existence.

It was not merely blocked. It was GONE.

A ripple of fear and anguish shuddered through her lithe frame as another realization struck her: she knew Shayla was in the Darker Realms, just knew it. But something there was apparently able to break into her use of the All and take away the Link she had created and maintained. For while she knew Shayla had been learning of the All, she was no fool. No mere student could have rocketed to this level in so short a period of time; even she herself, the Dark lady, could not interfere in any aspect of that wondrous power her own Teacher, the Dark Lord Aelvedaar, would have emplaced.

At least not without outside assistance.

And now she had no guide to follow, by which to go to Shayla and assist her.

For a moment she teetered on a razor's edge of continued fear and sorrow, coming a hair's-breadth from caving, from letting the Dark win over in this little scenario, giving up on Shayla altogether. Then she firmed.

"No," she whispered softly. Those few citizens of the floating city jumped collectively at this; then perhaps sensing a change in the strange woman's aspect they nodded nervously and fled. A little smile crooked Jharmeen's lips, and she drew in a fortifying breath.

"I do not know what you are up to, my dear Sister, but I trust that you can keep yourself from ill until I can gain those who could come with me, to find you and return you to the Realm of the Living.

"For this I cannot do alone."

This final realization was perhaps the most startling of all: it wasn't often that a God was stared directly in the face only to find that s/he has come up wanting.

"I will find my dear love, Lord Phalomir, and my Teacher, the Dark Lord Aelvedaar. Then we shall breech the blackness to find you."

With that she yanked herself from the wall, suddenly filled with the strength of determination, and began moving quickly down the corridor she had been traveling. Somewhere in the surreality of a city floating among the clouds was a Verpine of her acquaintance, and she meant to find him before fleeing altogether to seek those she loved with all her heart.

For surely their great combined Love would prevail against the Night...

The sentients whom she had managed to stop in passing only replied to her seemingly odd inquiry with polite mumblings, then hurried away as fast as they could from someone they in turn deemed to be a bit more than strange. Some even paused in their restrained flight to cast a glance of trepidation over their shoulders.

Jharmeen never saw this; her eyes grew as dark as her heart, which was becoming heavier by the moment. It seemed that perhaps the best thing would be to just up and leave the city, to find her dear love and her esteemed Father, to then go on the trail of her even dearer Sister, to bring her back from the very abyss of Death...

...when she happened upon a little establishment tucked away in a tiny nook off of a side corridor of the main one she had been following.

The Blue Asteroid.

Quaint.

A small flicker of something akin to a smile momentarily graced her features as she stood at the doorway, peering though a window clouded with years of smeary fingers and death-stick smoke. Certainly this was not the kind of place that she would normally frequent, but perhaps someone within might know a bit more than the general passersby who for the most part had simply kept on passing her by.

She drew in a breath and tossed her head, that her locks would tumble down over her forehead and hide the Glyph that was lightly slumbering there. Then she entered, only to pause just inside the doorway to take a look about herself.

Dark it was, the gloomy kind of dark where the underlings of every city like to go to hide. Not to say that all therein were of the criminal variety, no; perhaps it was more reasonable to suggest that, as a whole, one could term the customers as being merely of a somewhat shady bent. But dollars to dingos it stood to reason that the majority weren't the ones who loved quite how the city was being run, or who was running it, or where it was running to.

And they were all here grumbling into their various beverages, spices, and other implements of questionable source.

Jharmeen, the Chosen Daughter of the Sith, the Dark Lady of the Warrior Clan of the Sith, the Bearer and Holder of the All, the most powerful force yet discovered in the entire known universe, suddenly found herself at a loss. A blow struck her then, one not tangible but seemingly so; a memory coming from the very mists of time, of her sister.

Oh how she wished her sister Galen was here. She would most certainly know what do do, how to act, what words to say...

A snort of her own making brought her reeling senses back to the reality that she indeed was the Chosen Daughter and Dark Lady of the Warriors of the Sith. Holding her head high, she strode into the smoky darkness, and approached the bar.

The Master awoke, his head swimming and his body screaming in protest. He opened his eyes as best he could, but the light was too bright to see anything but streaks and smears. A low hum rang through his ears, and he heard the familiar blips and chitters that indicated he was a aboard a ship of some kind.

“’Ey, Bunkie, he’s waking up!” came a gruff voice.

He remembered going through the portal from the Elseness, crawling through. But there was something odd, something strange about the other side. His powers had vanished, completely disappeared when he passed through. Even now he could not call forth any of his connection to the All, nor even with his Sith magick.

“Mister,” came another voice. “Hey, you, whatever you are. You awake there?”

The Master groaned again. His head continued to swim.

“Master,” he said weakly.

“What was that?” said the first voice. “You say something, mister?”

“Not ‘mister’,” he whispered. “Master…”

He fell back into the dark oblivion. Some time later, he stirred again.

“Bunkie!” came the now familiar voice of… someone. “He’s movin’ again!”

The sound of footsteps clinking against a metal floor came from a distance, then they entered the immediate vicinity. The Master felt the presence of another person. His eyes fluttered open once more, blinking against the light. He felt slightly stronger, though not much, and his body still lay broken and useless. But why was his magick gone?

“Mister,” said a voice, “I’m not one to tossing people out of an airlock for stowing away on my ship, but I also ain’t one to believe in people just appearing from out of nowhere. Now I’ll cut to the chase, you either tell me how you got on board and what it is you’re doing here, or I’ll be dropping you off at the nearest Empire ship.”

The Master thought. He had stumbled from the Elseness and onto a ship, apparently mid-flight. That was an incredible thing and he smiled a little at that. But something had robbed him of his powers, and that was not something to smile at.

“I was teleported,” he managed, not knowing if he would be believed nor in a position to care. “I need a hospital, on the Sith worlds. I can pay.”

There was a long silence.

“You’ve been out for a couple of days,” said the voice. “I’m Truck, Bunkers Truck, you’re aboard my freighter, the Vestal Vermin. Look, um, we didn’t think you were gonna make it there, so we hooked you up to the sickbay bed. It’s been trying to fix you up but it doesn’t know what the heck you are. So, afraid that you ain’t much better then when you landed here. I don’t want trouble, but I am interested in two things: getting you off my ship and hearing more about you being able to pay.”

The Master tried to smile again.

“I have great wealth, take me to K’eel Doba and you shall be rewarded.”

Again, silence, for several moments.

“You, uh, mentioned a lot of things when you was out,” said Truck. “Places I never heard of, names of folks. I tried plugging some of those names into the nav computer and it just laughed. But that’s why I believe you, mister. Nobody’s gonna lie when they’re thrashing on their death bed like that. But I don’t want no trouble, like I said. One of those names you threw out, it hit me, it sounded familiar. So I’m gonna take you to hospital, but it’s on the planet that I’m dropping off my cargo. So you pay me with that gem around your neck and we’ll call it even, right?”

“Just follow me, then, sir,” he said. “To sector 3.”

The green fellow turned and led the verpine out of the crowded restaurant. He paused at a lift and waited. When he saw K’kihl following, he pushed the button.

Within a few seconds the door opened and they both stepped inside.

“Well I’ll be!” Truck exclaimed. “That varmint is actually here? Then yes, place a call, it’s in his hands now. All six of ‘em.”

The Master faded back into his own mind, vivid dreams of delirium taking their stage. It was all his fault, he knew it, this destruction and chaos that would run rampant. The destruction of the Sith worlds, it would all happen again. He was a fool to think that he could stop it, to alter the course of time. His only hope was to find her, and convince her. He had to find the Dark Lady! It all rested upon her shoulders, the Dark Lady…

"A bother, this not is," he said politely, although to the soul of his very being he meant every word uttered in the phrase. Indeed, anything... anything, was better than being shackled to the hulking Besalisk Driffane, who had the most annoying table manners of any creature he had ever seen.

And he'd been around plenty in the galaxy, and had seen quite a lot.

But not, however, this. The green-skinned individual peaked his interest if only for the sheer unlikeliness that his appearance was happenstance. That there was something more in play, something hidden, he was quite certain. Being Verpine he was logical by nature; serendipidity just wasn't one of his major life-paradigms.

So the mystery messenger had an agenda. Whether or not he could make use of it, that was yet to be revealed.

And again the Verpine didn't believe one word of it.

"Dark Lady?" he retorted, clacking his mandibles to make the statement into a query. He regarded the being with shining, multi-faceted eyes, dithering to himself all the while behind them. At length he managed to contain the inherent honesty that rose up in protest, and continued.

The door of the lift slid open to a large sign designating Sector 3. The messenger stepped out and waited for K’kihl to follow. A few corridors later and the healing center was reached. Another few paces and the pair were standing before a door.

“I certainly hope you find your answers,” he said. “The doctor is Gentry, he will have questions for you.” The messenger then punched the lock on the door and it slid open.

Inside, lying on a bed, with tubes going into both arms and his mouth, lay a hulking Sith all too familiar to K’kihl. He bore a resemblance to the Dark Lord of the Armorers, but his facial features were off just enough to indicate that this was indeed not Phalomir.

But K’kihl had seen this face before. It belonged to the mysterious Sith who called himself “The Master”.

He would have blinked himself from his reverie if he could have. As it was, his mandibles clacked and clattered a bit nervously.

"This being, unknown to I is he," he managed at last as he took one small step away from the door and the pen-waving Gentry. "Another K'kihl, perhaps, is referred to; a mistake there has been made."

He took another step back, bumping accidentally into the green-skinned messenger who had brought him into this unexpected nightmare. A clawed appendage waved out in apology; although indeed his mind was awhirl with the possibility of information he might glean from the bed-ridden Master, it was also filled with the deeds he had managed to impart unto others in the past.

He had no need for him, and certainly did not wish to let him find the Dark Lady, whom he had sworn to protect.

“You,” he croaked. His voice was still weak but loud enough to be heard. “The Verpine. She is in danger – from Phalomir…”

He stopped, a clot of something stopped in his throat. He grimaced and fought it down, wishing his powers were still with him.

And then they were.

First, he could feel the Sith magick again connecting to his mind. He inhaled deeply, relishing in the old familiar feelings of strength returning to his body. It coursed through his veins now, bringing accelerated healing to the severely damaged bones and tissues of his mortal self. He relaxed now, still exhausted.

Jasyn had been nursing his third cup of caf, trying to edge off the rest of his hangover, when his proximity indicator finally announced the imminent reversion at Bespin. As he seated himself at the pilot's chair, he scowled to himself. He had polished off every last drop of Corellian Ale aboard ship, and the drunken stupor he had been had only recently really begun to clear.

"Kriffing hell," he growled to himself even as starlines refashioned themselves to look like stars. "What was I thinking?" he muttered to himself as he headed towards atmosphere. For although he knew Graysith's general location, it was a very heavily populated city, and one wall looked like another...

His scowl blackened even as an umbrella ship covered him and he requested permission to dock in the city. In a few minutes he had succeeded in doing precisely that, and in just a few more he had engines cooled. Then he deboarded the ship, making sure the blaster he had appropriated was firmly secured to the weapons belt of the grey flightsuit he now wore before closing the hatch and locking her up with a new passcode he had programmed in.

As he began to head towards the city, Jasyn idly he wondered if there was a good food establishment around. He hadn't eaten in a while, and a meal would do wonders in helping him decide what to do next.

And it would certainly clear the remnants of the buzz he had from drinking all that ale...

"Mistaken again you are!" he stated with another clack of his mandibles for emphasis.

"Harm the Lady never would that one; loves her, does he."

He paused then, all too aware of what he had just let slip. For his reply could only be deciphered as an acknowledgement of his knowing the man who lay so quietly and apparently injured before him. Or, at the very least, that he knew indeed of what the man was talking of. In either case, logic dictated that the proverbial jig was up; cocking his head a bit to one side he scanned the Master a bit more thoroughly, trying to assess his state of health.

Perhaps he was indeed injured, and could do him no harm. Perhaps he could yet learn of something that might be of use to them, and in the meantime keep his knowledge of Jharmeen's whereabouts quiet.

He clattered his mandibles again, the equivalent of a Verpine shrug.

"Found out, am I, for of this Lady and Phalomir have I made some acquaintance. More know you than I in their matter; perhaps divulge more to this one you might so oblige?"

Clattering the Verpine equivalent of a sigh, he moved to where the pen-bearing Gentry still hovered and, taking the instrument deftly in appendage, scribbled his nom du plume where the affable being indicated.

Who then, of course, vanished out the door, paperwork in hand.

"I will take... some..." she faltered as with something of a start she realized that, Dark Lady that she was, all she would naturally now ask for would be a Sith brandy. And of course such a request would do nothing but provoke stares and mutters of curiosity... and both would certainly do nothing more than lead her into trouble. Although she had no doubt in her mind that she could handle any trouble coming her way, the best defense in such matters was really a quiet offense...

Or a complete lack of anything in that department. Pre-emptive nil, if you will.

"A--" she stammered again.

Then inspiration struck.

Leaning against the bar in a provacative manner, she blinked heavy lashes at the hulk.

"You look knowledgeable when it comes to the wants of a lady," she cooed softly, leaning forward just a touch so that her natural perfume would waft into what passed for his nostrils. The thought that perhaps this hulk might find human female pheromones disgusting was quietly squelched; if her little act didn't infiltrate the hulk's soggy senses enough to where she might have a good chance of wrapping him around her little finger, perhaps it might work on another of the seedy patrons frequenting this seedy establishment.

She batted her eyelashes again.

"Surprise me."

"Dat'll be two credits, sweetheart," the hulk grumbled, not moving from his position which was likewise in front of her. She cast a look at the glass, raised her eyes to his and pinned him with a look that briefly unleashed the fires of a nuclear furnace, but rapidly dwindled down to something all softness and vulnerability.

"May I run a tab, please?" she asked quietly, not yet reaching for her glass. The hulk considered her a moment, assessing her with a rake of his eyes before turning away with an affirmative grunt. She let a little sigh waft out toward his departing back, then turned her own to the bar and perused the facility over her neon yellow drink.

The place was seedy, dimly lit, not the liveliest joint on the block, to be certain, but containing at least fifteen patrons. They all looked to be as seedy as the room, hunkering in pairs or singly, nursing solitary drinks or murmuring quietly to each other. She blinked, shaking her head inwardly.

Perhaps this wasn't quite the best of ideas she'd ever had; oh how she wished, once again, that her sister was here. She was certain Galen would know exactly what to do, what buttons to push, what feminine wiles to let momentarily slip while never losing the objective of obtaining information...

Her focus was snapped outward again as a creak of worn leather announced the arrival of someone. She blinked, turned to acknowledge the human male who had come up to sit in the stool next to her.

"Hi, beautiful," he grinned through a two-day stubble. Behind that stubble, however, shone gleaming white teeth. That and the fact that his miner's clothing, while being worn, was clean, gave her added hope. She reared back a little, returning his appraising look degree for degree.

"You look like you need a friend."

All right, so he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box. But he seemed direct enough; at least a quick slip into his immediate thoughts didn't reveal much more than what she normally would expect under the circumstances, which scarcely had anything remotely to do with developing a friendship with her.

But he might still know something.

She sighed, looked down to the drink in her hands, then raised her eyes to meet his.

"Friends are always nice to have, especially when one is in need of help," she replied in a voice as ethereal as the leviathan beldons floating in the clouds beyond the city, those gaseous, jellyfish-like creatures who, it was thought, processed the planet's valuable Tibanna gas by metabolizing other gases in Bespin's Life Zone.

She blinked her violet eyes again, and shot him a tremulous smile. Predictable to a tee, even for her, he straightened, stuck his chest out a little.

"Hey, beautiful, no worries. Cazun Farr is here at your service; what can I do ya for?"

As another quick mind-slip didn't reveal much more than her former one had, she pressed on.

"I'm afraid I am out of money to pay for my drink, and my... my sister and I have become separated. She has our funds; we're here to see about some--" She paused strategically, as if catching herself on the brink of letting something dark and illegal and possibly profitable slip from her tongue. Then she smiled again, and went on.

"She and our engineer and I got separated while we were out... out, ummm... shopping. I walked and walked, but still couldn't find them; they must not have their commlinks open. But I got so tired, and so thirsty, that I stopped in here for something and ordered before I remembered I didn't have any money..."

There.

She couldn't help but take in a deep breath of satisfaction with herself, one which more than likely was interpreted by the miner as being one born of gloom and despair. This was beginning to sound more and more like something Galen would come up with; perhaps something of her sister had rubbed off on her somewhere during their life together. And if it sounded like something Galen would come up with, it more than probably would bear fruit.

If she was lucky, this Cazun Farr would now think she had money, although not on her at the moment; would believe her to be naive and stupid and thus either an easy mark -- should he prove to have less than honorable intentions -- or a genuine damsel in distress, to whose side he could chivalrously rush to assist.

She seriously hoped it would be the latter.

"And I'm afraid I can't remember how to get back to the public docking bay," she finished with a single bat of her eyes and a dainty sip from her glass.

But he was well enough to open his eyes and look directly at the Verpine.

Jasyn shook his head a bit. What the kriffing hell was it with that name? Was the Blue Asteroid some sort of resturaunt chain in the galaxy or something?

Despite the bit of deja vu, Jasyn decided that--especially since the sign said the place had good food and drink--he'd pay it a visit. So he began following the directions given underneath the slogan. As he continued to walk and mull, he briefly wondered why the hell he'd decided to land here instead of Cloud City, Bespin's capital. After all, if someone was coming here for restoration or just for a good place to disappear for a while, they would go there first since it had more attractions to offer. Still, he'd been to Tibannopolis before, on business, and EE had multiple mining clients onplanet.

And that thought sparked an idea. Jasyn's step quickened a bit as he raised his arm and keyed in Aaron's private frequency on his wristcomm, knowing he would have access to the information needed right at his fingertips.

Hey, Aaron, Jasyn Lancaster reporting in. I'm on Bespin, and I need a few connections. I know we have several clients in Tibannopolis, and was wondering if you could hook me up with someone who might be in need of some equipment...

...and might in turn be a useful connection for me as I am looking for ahhh....

He paused, not wanting to say the word Graysith in the crowded city and raise unwanted alarm, and not certain if Aaron knew her as Jharmeen or not.

Unless the Dark Lord had been somehow taken over by someone or something with a dark agenda and darker powers; possession, perhaps?

He tilted his head a little to one side.

“Proof?” he chuckled. “Go ask him yourself, you’ll have all the proof you need. Or better yet, ask your friend the blonde. She is with him.”

His laughter took a turn into a deep, raspy cough. He closed his eyes and concentrated, accelerating the healing once again.

He sniffed, clacked a manipulatory appendage.

"Mistaken you are," he said at length. "To a place of healing, did he send her; in my care, did he place her. Actions of one who would a danger pose, these are not."

He paused a moment longer, then flipped his chitinous "fingers" inward, and appeared to study them nonchalantly.

"Perhaps on another world, the Lady is. Perhaps better healing, elsewhere is obtained.

"Perhaps the-- the--" He stumbled fractionally before continuing, "the resorts of Cloud City, does this one like.

The Master paused, suddenly struck by what K’kihl had said.

"Umm.. the time, now it is..." He gave the current date, as well as providing information as to where they were on Bespin. And did let slip the little fact that he had brought Jharmeen here from Endor. He did not, however, mention that Dark Lord Aelvedaar was still on that moon; in fact, never even acknowledged Phalomir's presence there.

Only that Phalomir had directed that he bring the Dark Lady of the Warriors from Endor to Bespin; simply that he had come with her here from there.

"True, the Dark Lady, into my care has been placed," he went on carefully. "By the one, loves her he does." He began to rear upright a little, half turning to the Master now even as he inched doorward.

"No harm to her shall come; hidden is she, protect her will I--"

He cut himself off suddenly, as a new wonder rose into his mind. For if this man, this Master was indeed as dangerous as he had been to them in the past, why was he not now actually doing something to him? Using his powers, forcing him to take him to her?

It was a quandary, and forced his inching feet to slow to a halt.

"Serious are you, in no harm meaning her?" he finally asked as he turned fully back to directly face the bed-ridden man. Then--

"Jasyn, I'm sending you information on a few contacts that may be able to help you on Bespin. A couple are miners in Tibiannaopolis, one is a resort owner in Cloud city, and the last is a delegate fromt he government there. All are good clients and have requests for various ships; I'm sending you detials regarding some ships we have that may suit each of them. If you can help them out, I am certain that they will in turn help you. Let me know if you need anything else."

“Proof?” he scoffed. “Trust? Of course no one trusts me! I’ve done nothing but harm to the people you know. But it was all for the good of the Sith, and the galaxy. Everything was.”

His eyes trailed down to the spot on the wall once more.

“I gave him over,” he said, his voice lowering to a guilty hush. “The darkness took him, my son – it was the arrangement, you see. The power to save the galaxy would be mine, and I would wield it with benevolence and wisdom. But I was betrayed, as were we all.”

The Master again regarded the Verpine, his eyes sunken.

Especially since one of the clients Aaron had listed was a Bespin government delegate. Although the two miners were in closer range, Jasyn really didn't know how many connections they may or may not have. The delegate, on the other hand, had ties to the government...

...and potentially to the eyes and ears of the planet. As he waited for his food and took the first sip of his drink, Jasyn keyed in the frequency Aaron had given him, recalling as he did how much he hated actually having to sell a ship.

Delegate Seth Zekkin; I am Jasyn Lancaster of Eagle Enterprises calling to inform you that we have a few ships that may fill your recent request. I am on-planet and would like to do business with you personally; currently I am in Tiabannapolis but would be willing to meet you at a location more convenient to you. I can give you a good deal and am sending with this message some of the specs on the ships we can offer you; I hope to hear from you shortly.

Lancaster out.

He cocked his head.

"Perhaps other enemies have you, with powers so great," he began, before following more carefully with:

"Or perhaps, your own enemy are you. Power you have, deception you practice. Know I not, if this--"

He waved a manipulatory appendage toward the Master and the bed.

"--truth or ruse is."

He began inching his itchy feet another few centimeters toward the door, when logic reared its ugly head. There was only one way he could think of to determine the veracity of the Master's words, as distasteful as it was to him.

If without powers, as is Lady, then safe am I. If strong, again the Lady is. Paramount is, the safety of the Lady.

Expendable I, know the action do I now...

Heaving an almost sorrowful sigh, he suddenly charged the bed. Reaching it, he shot out one arm, and with the pincers on the end of his manipulatory appendage sliced the Master's arm, which was laying exposed atop the covers. His powerful insectoid musculature then sent him shooting backward toward the door, where he came to a crouching halt, waiting to see how fell the fruits of his efforts to determine the Truth.

“If a test is what you wanted,” he said flatly, “Then there you have it. Yes, my powers are weak at the moment. I have had a very trying time to say the least, and I’ve had to divert nearly everything I have into healing myself. But make no mistake, my friend, weakened or not, if I wished it you would be lining the walls of this otherwise pristine medical facility.”

The Master sighed and looked away, the anger fading.

“But my strength is not enough to battle this monster I have helped to create, and if I do not speak with the Dark Lady then what little chance we currently have may evaporate completely.”

A man who had been as evil to them as this one would have, by virtue of his nature, instantly attacked back in retaliation of K'kihl's attack upon him. If not utterly squashing him ere that attack even find its end. And he, K'kihl, was still standing, wasn't he?

He nodded and straightened his body, letting his mandibles clatter in loosening relief that he himself was still among the living.

Not to mention at his suddenly growing hypothesis that since this one did seem to have his powers, perhaps the Lady may have regained her own strengths as well. If all this was yet a ruse, chances were indeed good that She would be able to hold her own against him.

It was now the time to make a decision.

"Believe you, do I," he announced simply, choosing to keep quiet his thoughts on the possibility that this all might yet be some sort of elaborate deception. "But possibly believe you not, will She.

"Enemy have you made, of her for the love of Phalomir. But if truth indeed it is you speak, together then must all join, this darker foe to battle."

He paused a moment before taking the final leap of faith.

“I thank you,” he said. “I know, it will be difficult to gain her trust. But she will believe me, I am certain. She will find the truth for herself merely by looking into her heart.”

After a moment the Master opened his eyes and lifted his head.

“But there is no need to wait any longer,” he said through a raspy voice. “I am well enough, and further delay will only cause problems.”

He waved his hand across his body as if pushing the blanket back. Obeying, the blanket flew from him and landed crumpled on the floor. He moved his legs gingerly to the side and came to a sitting position on the side of the bed.

There he held it out to the Master, letting it dangle precariously from one pincher until it was removed in a single smooth gesture and donned. K'kihl waited a bit longer as the man fussed a bit with his accoutrements, then turned aboutface and headed back to the door.

"You will now follow me," he called over his shoulder, not even turning to look at the man any longer. Small rustles and quiet grunts informed him that the man was indeed behind him, and if he remained thus that would suit the Verpine just fine. For truth be told, he found the Master's presence to be a discomfiting one, and didn't dare look into the man's face -- or eyes -- any more than immediate circumstances called for. Hopefully he was telling the truth, and they would return without incident to where he had left the Dark Lady.

Which would, of course, only lend credence to his somewhat bizarre tale of Phalomir going bad.

K'kihl shook his head to himself.

Now there indeed was a quandary... and one the very thought of which brought back with a vengeance the worm of unease he had only just managed to subdue.

Mr. Lancaster, I am most pleased to receive your offers and would be interested in speaking with you further about them. I unfortunately am stuck in Cloud City on business, however, and will not be able to meet with you for another standard day. If you are willing to travel here to Cloud City to meet with me, it will be at my personal expense to transport you via luxury yacht from Tiabannapolis to Level 51 of Cloud City, where you may partake of food and entertainment while you wait. Please let me know if this would interest you and I will get you passage to cloud city on the next available yacht going out from there.

Seth Zekkin, out.

Jasyn chewed his lip a bit in thought...

...but really, there was little to think about. This guy was offering a pleasure cruise aboard a luxury yacht to one of Cloud City's upscale living and entertainment levels, where he would meet him to do business.

Who the kriffing hell would turn THAT down? Besides, it sounded like the guy had a good amount of resources at his fingertips, if he could get passage out of Tiabannapolis to Cloud City that easily and luxuriously.

Jasyn nodded to himself, a bit of crooked smile sliding onto his face as he pressed the response button.

Delegate Zekkin, I would be glad to take you up on your offer. Please let me know where to report to so I might depart from here and make my way to Cloud City; I promise you I will make it worth your while.

But he felt his connection to the All was still with him, and although weak he felt it wise to test his powers. He concentrated, waved his hand, and his boots floated to him. They landed on the floor before him and he smiled a little, then stepped into them.

He straightened as best he could and pulled on the robe collars. A wry smile crossed his face and regarded K’kihl, who was looking away.

But that was not to say that he accepted what had just occured with any particular degree of aplomb. Quite the contrary; to his dismay he found this worrisome, another potential nail in a coffin he couldn't help but think he was building for himself and those he was loyal to.

Why that, did this being do? he couldn't help wondering as they moved along. To fun of me make, is it? To himself assert, matters not what he states?

He shook his head slightly, quickening his pace. Hopefully once back to the Lady's side, the cards would rapidly fall into place. She would be well, strong and able to defend herself as well as him, and the Master would not be quite the threat that K'kihl yet maintained to himself that he was.

Alas, that was not to be.

He stood framed in the doorway of the empty room, staring in something of shocked disbelief at its interior. The bed was neatly made, fresh floral arrangements graced its tables, a bit of sweet lay on the plumped pillows for the next occupant to enjoy.

He would have blinked if he could.

"Th-the Dark Lady, here she is not," he stated unnecessarily, and for a moment remained where he was. Then giving himself a boost of courage, he turned to face the Master.

And that he needed to be able to think when he did.

“You said she was seriously injured!” he growled. “She may have regained her ability to heal herself, but why would she have vanished without telling you where she was going?”

He took a step into the room, brushing the shaken K’kihl to the side. The Master noted that his own strength was returning more rapidly now, perhaps enough to summon The All. This eased him a little.

But not much.

“The dark one may have already come for her,” he said coldly. “But no, that is not possible. It is not the right time, it is too soon. Does she have a com link? Wait… Perhaps…”

She was the Dark Lady, and he was a Sith. If she were in the area, anywhere on the planet, then he could reach out with the connection that all Sith shared. It was little used away from the home worlds, but even here it should provide enough connection to at least tell him if she were close, and alert her that a Sith was in the area as well.

Jasyn knew the time to show his cards and do some hard bargaining was at hand as Seth asked for the price for the ships.

"Well, you can buy each for the sum of 100,000 credits...

...but I have to admit something to you first." Jasyn paused, taking a sip of his drink. He hated wheeling and dealing...

...especially this kind. "I have something I need too, that maybe you can provide because of your position here."

Jasyn quieted for a moment again, but quickly spoke up once more as a thundercloud began to form in Seth's eyes.

"It's not what you may think. I'm looking for someone....a Verpine who I believe came here with an injured woman named Jharmeen. The problem is I have no way to contact him or find him at the moment...

...so I need someone with access to ships that may have landed here or even medical center information. If you can give me some help in finding these two, Barnes is willing to reduce the price of the ships twenty-five percent."

The thundercloud in Seth's eyes disappated. Jasyn let out a mental sigh of relief.

"I don't know if I can get you access to information on who may have checked into the healing centers here, but I can get you information on ships that have docked onplanet. Do you know what sort of ship they may have arrived in?"

"A TIE fighter, most likely," Jasyn responded.

Seth nodded, and began keying something in on his wristcomm. After he was finished, he looked back at Jasyn. "It might not be much, but maybe if we can track down your friend's fighter I can at least get you in the right area to look."

Seth paused, taking his own drink as food finally arrived. Jasyn took a bite of some rather good food. Across the way, Seth was beginning to take a drink, but then paused as a strange look crossed his face.

"Wait a minute, did you say this guy you are looking for is a Verpine?"

Jasyn arched an eyebrow, having no idea where this was going. "Yeah," he responded, putting the nearing bite of food in his mouth...

...and pratically spitting it out with Seth's next words.

"Rumors have been running rampant that there is some odd, red-skinned humanoid who is badly injured in the healing centers on Tiabannapolis. That being was dropped off here and left...

...with whomever left him saying that the person who could help would be with a Verpine by the name of K'khil."

Jasyn had to take a moment to recover from his initial shock. At length, he put his fork down though, looking Seth dead in the eye. "Any chance I can impose upon you to get me back to Tiabannopolis ASAP and get me to this healing center? Cause if you can, and this pans out like I hope it will...

...you're going to get yourself one kriffing hell of a discount on your ships."

He trailed a moment, a final question popping up in his head via a shoulder devil. "I don't suppose there was a name assiciated with this red-skinned being in those rumors you heard?"

He paused, stepping away from the table, and motioning to Jasyn. "Follow me."

Without further word Seth began leading Jasyn through the maze of levels in Cloud City, nodding to a person here or there, exchanging some brief words with a few others, but for the most part keeping up his pace and focused on getting Jasyn to where his ship was berthed. Jasyn had to wonder if a bit of Zekkin's eagerness to help stemmed from curiosity regarding the rumored humanoid...

...a Sith no doubt...

...and Jasyn couldn't really say that he blamed him. He also couldn't help but wonder who this Sith was, surprised to find himself hoping it was Lord Aelvedaar. After all, While Sith in general spooked him, the Dark Lord was one of the only ones, if not the only one, that he felt he could trust at all.

But knowing his luck it was probably someone like that kriffing fat-headed Master father of Phalomir's.

Jasyn scowled at the thought as Seth's steps began to slow and they entered a well-kept, personal docking bay. Zekkin stopped completely as they approached a sleek little YT-3000.

Jasyn whistled, impressed. "Nice ship!" he commented as Zekkin punched in a code to release the hatch. Seth turned and smiled. "An aquisition from your fine comppany," Seth said with a smile, extending a hand to prompt Jasyn to board ship. Seth followed Jasyn in, closed the hatch behind him, and headed for the cabin where he began warming the engines.

"While we're waiting for her to warm, lemme give a friend in the medical center on Tiabannapolis a comm and see if we can get any more info on this red-skinned humanoid."

She didn't know this, of course. All she knew was what a quick little mind-dip told her: that when in reply to her words Cazun offered to lead her to the Tibannopolis Space Port, he was telling the truth. No subterfuge or hidden agenda to be found.

He finds me a damsel in distress... she couldn't help musing to herself as, rising to her feet, she waited while the man paid his and her charges. Such must be rewarded.

Following along with him into the corridors of Tibannopolis, she was musing just how she could do just that -- without in turn revealing too much about herself -- when something began to niggle within her. At first she tried to ignore it, merely frowning a bit as they walked along. Cazun of course, being her self-appointed Knight in Shining Armor, noticed this at once.

"It- it is nothing," she stammered, trying to regain her former air of innocent aplomb. But this was quite the difficult thing to do, since the niggle was growing in leaps and bounds, now spreading through her every vein, coursing through her blood, racing into her brain and into her heart.

She stopped abruptly as recognition slammed into her.

It is the Magick of the Sith.

She hadn't felt this in aeons, it seemed. The last to use such to reach out to her had been Recinis, and prior to that her dear Lord and Teacher, Dark Lord Aelvedaar. Perhaps it was one of them, finding her here on this remote planet against all understandable odds?

She closed her eyes, oblivious to Cazun's worried inquiries, and simply let the magick continue with its contact.

I am here, she finally let slip back along the link, and in that return learned if not from whom, at last from where it had originated.

This very city. Quite close.

Her eyes flew open in shock.

"Come, my friend," she said in apparent, and altogether worrisome non sequiteur. "We must hasten."

With that she wound her arm into Cazun's own, and began to move faster through the now-lessening crowd, trying to home in on the magickal Call of the Sith now ringing like a trumpet in her ears.

Jasyn frowned as this report came through.

Kriffing hell, if only K'khil had a comm unit he could be reached on, he thought to himself.

But that particular thought prompted another, logical possibility.

"Hey, Zekkin--can your friend find out if the Verpine is still in the medical center and have someone give him a message that I'm on-planet and enroute to the medical center on Tiabannopolis to find him?"

Seth nodded, transmitted the message, and then got to the business of docking his personal ship in a private docking bay on Tiabannapolis. Likewise it had taken little time for the message to return that both the unnamed humanoid and the Verpine had departed.

"Bloody hell," Jasyn growled. "Now I'm back to square one."

Seth turned and regarded him as he finalized docking procedures and the ship met the tarmac with a graceful whoosh.

"Maybe not entirely, Zekkin commented. "After all, finding a wounded female and even a single Verpine in Tiabannapolis may be difficult; but finding a much-talked about, potentially injured being that nobody recognizes will not be."

He paused, releasing the hatch and getting to his feet, heading for it with Jasyn closely behind.

"You have something in mind?" Jasyn queried somewhat rhetorically.

"Sure," the other man said, turning to Jasyn. "My source does know that the med center the unknown being and Verpine departed from was here in Sector 3; they did not depart all that long ago, so they should not have gone far. We're going to head that way now...

...and in the meantime I'm gonna send a friend out to find these guys at let the Verpine know you are looking for him."

As he said this, Seth punched a few buttons on his wristcomm to send precisely that message out. "Now, hopefully between my friend--a local resident and mine owner in Tiabannapolis--and ourselves we can have some success."

"My dear Sire! It warms my heart to once again make contact with you! But where on Bespin are you now? I received your first contact, that via Sith magicks alone, mere moments ago; tell me where you are, that I might come to you!"

((OOC: Reply cross-posts into Another Shade of All in the "Jedi Sith" forums, thank you.))

"No, my child; it was not I. By the Octahedron's Truths, I have discerned that in fact it is the Master who is close by to you on Bespin. The Verpine, K'kihl, accompanies him.

"Take a care, Daughter; perhaps you should return here to Khar Delba at this time? From here together we might discover the truth of what is happening on that gaseous planet, for it appears there is much more at hand than what merely meets the eye."

"I am in the accompaniment of a human male, my Sire, one whose immediate concern is to assist me. I feel it unwise at this time to reveal myself fully to him; also, I have covenant with K'kihl. I need extricate him from his predicament, which at least for the moment does not seem to be a lethal one.

"Let me do so before it does indeed develop into that. Upon retrieving him from the clutches of the Master, we shall both return to you and my beloved Khar Delba."

The final words slid from her mouth before she realized what they were, causing her eyes to fly open in surprise as she assimilated them. Then a small smile graced her features: indeed was Khar Delba beloved to her.

For it was there she had come to find the beginnings of who and what she now was.

Ignoring the words of concern coming at her from her companion, she finished her thoughts to the Dark Lord of the Sorcerers:

"I do not believe this shall take long, my Sire. We shall soon be with you."

With that she turned to settle the by now very anxious Cazun Farr.

"Tell me, my dear Gentleman Farr," she began out of the blue, now lending him her wide, violet eyes.

"How adept are you in... physically coming to the aid of a Lady?

"Should the need present itself," she hastily amended before falling silent.

This of course took the miner quite aback. For although he was all about making certain the desires and needs of the feminine set were given, if within his ability, he was no fighter. And he couldn't help but wonder if there was something more about this striking female than what she had told him earlier.

"Ahh... physical?" he stammered, not yet letting his touch be removed from her arm. His eyes met her unflinching violet pair.

"Ummm... well, I've not really been into much other than an occasional bar fight or two," he finally admitted, scratching his head with perplexity. "But if there's someone here who needs to hit the floor, I think I could find it within myself to do the job for ya."

She smiled in return.

"There may be no actual need for that, Gentleman Farr," she returned as, entwining her arm once more in his, she now began taking the lead. "But just the simple knowledge that you would be there for me, is enough.

"There is a friend of mine we must hasten to retrieve, before we go to the Space Port. He is with someone who... may attempt to strike physical blows against us; I do need to help this friend, for he has most certainly helped me."

She paused a moment, turned to look him straight in the eye again.

"As you are doing now, my dear Gentleman Farr."

((OOC: Graysith's reply goes to Aelvedaar in Another Shade of All in the "Jedi/Sith" forums, thank you.))

As they continued along, sightings lessened, mainly because as they passed through increasingly lavish sectors, fewer beings were lurking about to see anyone. Jasyn was beginning to think they were again at a dead end, and he would have to go back to square one, when travelling through what appeared to be some upscale living areas he cauht sight of a rather bizarre sight: that of a Verpine, framed by a nearby doorway, looking about as surprised as a Verpine could with the lack of facial muscles that they had. Jasyn was just about to call out K'khil's hname, relieved to find him, when the other character with him caught Jasyn's eye as well. He stopped suddenly, eyeing the Master, who was not turned in a direction to see him approach, and reached down to the blaster in his weapons belt, much to Zekkin's surprise.

"Wha...?" the other man began before he really saw the look in Jasyn's eye and stopped himself from making any further noise...

But bless his flea-bitten lil ol soul, he didn't even flinch about it. Rather, he seemed to puff out his chest a bit, as if unconsciously understanding the fact that he was needed in this case -- whatever the hell that might be -- and even if that need might not be quite what he had first imagined when coming to the aid of what he'd thought to be a gentlefem in dire need.

"Please, there is somewhere else we must go before you take me back to the Publick Docking Bay," Graysith suddenly spoke, tightening her grip just the tiniest bit more even as she seemed to melt against his body. "I need to go there, to... to find my sister, and my ship. It... will help."

She turned her face up to his, blinking her brilliant violet eyes to soften the gaffe she may have just made. It seemed to work, or else he didn't even notice the slight maladjustment.

"Sure, lady; anything you say," he said grandly, growing so bold as to place one arm about her shoulders. She made no indication if she was offended by this, but rather seemed to press more closely to his side.

"Good," she breathed, even while her thoughts whirled about in her head.

He is here, K'kihl is with him; is he friend or foe? My Sire wishes me to return to Khar Delba, but I cannot without the Verpine... and what to do with this gentleman?

Her thoughts were interrupted by an inquisitive pressure about her shoulder.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll get ya where you're going. And in the meantime, you're safe with me."

She blinked, her focus brought back enough to smile up at him, and by simply nodding let him know that his plan was A-OK with her.
But her smile dimmed as he took the lead, ignoring her subtle body language in lieue of getting her to where he thought she needed to be, and with the dimming she allowed her mind to reach out once again.

The route? The pathway opened by Sith magick.

And that was when Jasyn decided it would be better to act now, and ask questions later.

Quickly shifting his blaster to stun, he fired off a quick couple of shots directly into the Master's back before anyone could say a word or move a muscle. As the Master's body crumpled to the ground in the doorway--much to K'khil's surprise--Jasyn moved in, keeping his blaster trained on the Master despite his now stunned state.

"How the kriffing hell did he get here?" Jasyn asked, motioning towards the Master with his free hand. "And what happened? Is the Dark--"

He paused, self-correcting. "--Jharmeen with you?"

Trailing then, he looked to K'khil, still keeping his blaster pointed at the Master...

...and wondering if he should change blaster settings just in case.

Somehow he knew the guy couldn't be trusted...

However, logic kept running though his head, offsetting his first emotional reaction by trying to instill within him a better pathway of action to choose.

This happening, proof it is, of someone with power the Master is afraid. The words marched across his mind even as he dropped to a crouch beside the fallen body, one manipulatory appendage shooting out to assess the damage, the other steadying himself as he kept his eyes peeled for further trouble. About him, the few citizens nearby had reacted out of their own personal preferences: one gentlebeing in the process of departing the Blue Asteroid zipped back into hiding, now poking his face carefully out from hehind his own blaster in preparation of any further annoyances. Others had merely vanished into thin air, air which yet seemed to echo with the screams of a few fems who had likewise vanished.

K'kihl tossed a fast look to the man with a blaster, and crouched even lower, trying to reduce his silhouette in what might end up being line of potential cross-fire. He shook the Master, suddenly concerned.

With this unknown attacker, perhaps the Dark Lady is, his racing thoughts continued as he kept trying to bring the man back to consciousness.

]i]Aww, hell, he doesn't know you from Adam, let alone know why you've come in with your blaster blazing![/i]

Jasyn lowered his blaster...

...but not entirely. After all, he still didn't trust the Master for all the worlds. But his brain was finally kicking out of its initial reactionary mode to one of clearer thought, one in which he was trying to remember when he'd even seen K'khil last...

...and how he could prove to him that he wasn't just an insane man with a loaded weapon. Honestly, he couldn't think of where or when he'd actually seen K'khil last, at least not via anything other than that device Aeylmaar had. But he knew that they had met, at least once...

...somewhere. Jasyn's eyes defocused a little bit, and he frowned to himself.

Lessee....seems like Terrin, Galen, Matt, and himself were on the lam from Actar and had gone to some planet or another to hide out...

...when Terrin and Galen had crossed paths with K'khil and Yaoksi and they had all ended up blasting off-planet together to get away from Actar's Imperial lackeys.

Jasyn pursed his lips a bit harder, still thoughtful. And then Terrin had his arm ripped off by a Sith demon on Yaoksi's ship, and they'd headed to Sullust, and then all hell continued to descend once they had arrived there.

Jasyn forced himself away from those thoughts with some effort. "K'khil, it's me, Jasyn," he finally said. "I'm Terrin Danner's employee."

He paused, still trying to think of something that would validate that he was telling the truth for the Verpine. "We met in Dalius City and on the Devil May Care, way back when he lost his arm..."

He trailed. And when the Sith continued to hound them, and to leave not only physical scars, but also those of the most definite emotional and psychological variety, Jasyn thought darkly.

Although some of those things had changed, some of them, it seemed, never ever would...

As life seemed to return to a semblance of normalcy, the Verpine rose to his feet. He cocked his head a bit to one side, his mandibles clacking a little in the Verpine equivalent of licking his lips, before finally speaking.

"Small universe, this indeed is."

He remained quiet a second or two more, then pressed on.

"Ask you would I, this one here why you shot," he stated in a tone of voice too calm to truly represent the flutterbys still roiling around in his gut. "But for discussion we have not the time; perhaps scarce should we all now become?

"The arrival of officers of law enforcement, fear I."

Without waiting for a reply he reached down and grabbed the unconscious man by one arm. Them he stood fully upright, slinging him over his shoulder in an amazing display of Verpine muscle. For insectoid were the Verpine, and thus harbored the same relative body-strength-to-body size as did their smaller, less intelligent brethren.

...although he was looking awfully surprised. Jasyn almost felt guilty as he quirked a brow at the delegate questioningly. Zekkin seemed to shake himself, then nodded with a sigh.

"He can help keep us..."

A brief pause. You mean YOU, you trigger-happy idiot...!

"...out of gaining too much attention."

Pausing then, Jasyn really wished he had thought things through before he went shooting. "I've got a ship somewhere nearby...

Now gone is she, of unknown physical well-being is she, he berated himself silently. He shifted the silent body once, twice, then began moving along the walkway, his eyes busily searching for a place--

Any place!

--where they could at least be away from prying eyes, especially those of the aforementioned law enforcement officials.

"Know I not where to go; have I TIE fighter docked, umm--"

He stopped awkwardly, unwilling to so much as drop the slightest word about anything concerning his and Jharmeen's arrival here in Tibannopolis, should said word end up blossoming into a flytrap of killer proportions once again.

"--somewhere," he finished awkwardly. The body of the Master lifted and fell as he shrugged.

"But need I not TIE, for not room enough for two is there..."

A brief pause ensued while he battled inwardly in the face of this bald-faced lie. But, all for the best, until things could be sorted out...

His keen faceted eyes spotted something ahead. It was a set of stairs heading down, going to a different level of this city in the clouds. Hoisting the Master more comfortably on his shoulder he made a beeline for them, and headed into the dimness below.

"Perhaps away from all other eyes here can we be," he mentioned as he continued downward, his clattering footsteps echoing off the duracrete walls of what appeared more and more to be something along the lines of a subway entrance. Or something of a subterranean nature, at the very least.

Odd enough, that, to be found in a floating city.

"You owe me," the other finished. "Now get going. I'm gonna stay up here and straighten things out before security comes and gets you," he said then simply, pausing a moment himself. "I've got your promise on those ships, right?"

Jasyn nodded. "Thanks. I'll be in contact shortly."

Then with nothing further, he headed downward behind the Verpine, knowing that if he didn't fix the first impression he'd just given the insectoid, that he might not ever establish the trust he needed to do what he'd promised Aeylmaar he would. As they stepped into what very much looked like some sort of transport station-- one which conveniently was bustling with characters and activities-- Jasyn called out after the Verpine.

"Look, Aeylmaar sent me here to find you and Jharmeen," he stated, still feeling awkward about referring to her by her true name. "Maybe we can find somewhre a bit calmer to talk?" he then queried. "There's alot going on."

He glanced around himself a bit as they continued to work through the crowds, blending in, noting that every once in a while there was an alleyway of sorts in the transport station. All things considered, however, Jasyn wondered if it wouldn't be best just to get away from Tiabannapolis altogether.

But if Graysith was here somewhere with K'kihl, then maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

"Sorry about what happened back there..."

The soft chatter of voices echoed from the walls, but seemed to be fading...

He clicked his manibles with a jerk, looked about himself to find others growing quieter by degrees as in bits and pieces the group took active notice of their arrival. With a start he realized it was due to the appearance of the limp form he carried.

"Drink not," he finally asserted with a final clack.

That seemed to do the trick, for all interest in them vanished like smoke on the wind. Heaving a little sigh, he headed to the wall nearest to them and gently propped the Master against it. He straightened, and finally turned to Jasyn.

"Seeking the Dark La- Jharmeen, am I as well," he admitted in a low voice, then seeing as how the man had been sent here by the Sith decided that discretion needed serve no longer as the greater part of valor.

"Sent here was I, by Lord Phalomir, the Dark Lady to aid," he went on in a fast, low whisper. "Hurt was she on Endor; here to medical facility came we. But separated became we; coming into play did this one at that point."

He waved a manipulatory appendage toward the quiet form huddling on the platform. K'kihl cocked his head a bit to one side as he surveyed the Master; the man's head was at an odd angle, slumped down against his chest and a bit sideways. He reached out and gently straightened it, then went on.

"Come to assist the Lady, claims he, as the Dark Lord now a Lord of evil has become. At least asserts this one...

"...who in the assertion did bring no harm to me."

He stopped with that, returning his full focus to Jasyn once again.

Jasyn paused, frowning, now looking over to the stunned Master. "I don't trust him further than I can throw him. He has a sordid history of changing rontos mindstream, being a friend one second and being an enemy the next, but maybe he's onto something."

Jasyn paused, chewing his lip. "All this just means we really need to find her now; in the Octahedron Aeylmaar also saw Shayla Stargazer--"

Pausing another moment, Jasyn tried to remember if K'kihl even knew who that was. "--the Dark Lady's adept, travelling along with ShaRhylla and Lord Phalomir."

Jasyn shook his head. "Rhylla is notorious for being outright nasty to us all and trying to oust her mother...

...and I have no idea why the hell Phalomir would be with her."

"Yes," he replied succinctly. After a few moments ticked by, he went on.

"Perhaps knowledge more, this one has," he observed with a wave toward the still quiet form. "Perhaps awaken him, should we."

Now he turned his attention to the slumped figure. After another second or so had passed, he gave him a not so gentle nudge with one foot.

"I don't know if I can bring myself to trust what he has to offer or not," he admitted, his brown eyes darkening. He couldn't remember exactly why he distrusted the Sith so...

...but he was certain it was justified. After all, the guy had managed to come and go even more so than Graysith herself, which was saying quite a lot, all things considered. "Maybe my buddy above can help us find the Dark Lady in the meantime?" he queried then. "Surely she hasn't gone far, unless she has acquired transportation somehow.

Her concern grew into monstrous proportions when the Sith magick link suddenly blanked out.

She stumbled in surprise, recovering enough to let herself fall against the muscular body of the miner. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, lifting a hand in dismissal as he inquired if they had been moving too quickly.

"No, not quickly enough I fear," she said cryptically, now bringing them both to a standing halt while she cast about herself with the All.

Nothing. It was as if the Master had simply vanished into thin air.

She shook her head, angry with herself that she had not backed up that magickal link with one of her own making. Now all she had to go on was a general trend, a mere straightline direction as the crow flies.

And a crow could fly up and down while he flew overhead, couldn't he?

"Let us hurry, please," she asserted, now actively tugging Cazun along as she stepped out in the direction they had been going. Then surprise creased her features as some of their surroundings became somehow more familiar to her.

Hadn't she passed this establishment? Didn't that sign look like one she'd seen before? Wasn't that the very wall she had fallen against, when the link between her and Shayla had mysteriously snapped?

A niggle crept into her thoughts.

The Master is cunning, of that there is no doubt. There would be a fairly good certainty that he might have tracked down her location, had found the place she had been taken to, presumably to heal... although of the latter she actually had no idea.

It might have been that he himself had taken her there, after all.

She drew in a breath, now stepping steadily, with conviction, letting drop more and more the pretense that it was upon Cazun Farr that she depended for assistance. More and more there began to project an aura of that which indeed she was:

The Chosen One of the Dark Lord of the Sorcerers, and the Dark Lady of the Warrior clan of the Sith.

She didn't even notice the opening to the subterranean transport, so intent was she upon retracing her former steps...

Silence descended, stressing the fact that they were now alone on the platform.

K'kihl gave the Master's body another nudge, then looked up at Jasyn.

"Perhaps assist, your man can," he finally agreed. And then he lowered his body stance a bit, leaned conspiratorily in Jasyn's direction, every nuance of body language allowing that his next words were ones to not dismiss lightly.

"That Phalomir would be with this nasty young one, some sense does make," he admitted in a low tone of voice, as from the depths of his memory something suddenly burst forth. Indeed, suddenly all was making sense, albeit sense he did not want to admit.

The Dark Lady, seen in anguish, more than likely by the use of Sith magicks. So, they were well armed once more, presuming of course that they too had lost their talents. But in anguish, why other would it be? Was it the adept? Did this Dark Lady hold the adept in such esteem, that by now being dark herself it would stab her to the very heart?

For indeed, she was dark. K'kihl had always thought of her in that manner, for that was how he had come to know of her. But that made no sense; light was dark and dark was light; who was to trust, and who not?

It was enough to make his head spin. He needed someone to talk with about it all; oh for the nonsensical straight-forward approach of his one-time companion, Boss Sorben.

But that was not to be. The closest he had was this man, one who likewise seemed to be acquainted with those he himself was, but perhaps being one holding only partial pieces to a far bigger puzzle. Time to divest himself of those he held; at the least, it would indeed puzzle this man, and at the most give him information that might be invaluable to them both.

"This adept, Shayla; dark is she, dark has she been, traveling in the presence of--"

He paused, looked to the Master.

"This one." He gave him another nudge with his foot, but one far less gentle than before.

"This one states Phalomir is dark, and travels to harm the Dark Lady. But know I that Lord Phalomir loves her."

He leaned closer yet to Jasyn.

"Know I as well, clones of him, this Phalomir, there do exist. Why, I know not. But more than one Phalomir is there, in this universe, that I have myself seen with my own eyes."

He paused, juggling information, suddenly all a-dither. His mandibles clacked and clattered.

Which Phalomir was it, that had sent him here to Bespin, where he had immediately been separated from his charge, who then had so suddenly disappeared?

Jasyn sighed. "Something about that seems off to me, and trying to figure out if any of these guys are going to be helpful or stab you in the back is getting old. And now you're saying there are Phalomir clones, and some of them might not be friendlies either?"

Jasyn paused, shaking his head in frustration. The transport station fell into an almost eerie, damning silence, now and again marred by potential footsteps of one or more travellers and passersby.

"To the very establishment, where shot you this one, was the Lady taken. But from there has she vanished." He then quickly, if unnecessarily, repeated the address of the posh hotel-cum-medical center where Jharmeen had been deposited in lieue of a true hospital.

"And that red hair she has, her sister in like."

Meanwhile, the passageway fell into almost errie silence once more as the transit vessel whooshed off on its merry way. The silence passed by for a few moments after Zekkin sent acknowledgement of his request, but was then marred by a rhythmic, almost decisive pattern of footsteps, entwined with another pair that seemed a little less certain.

Despite his resolve to keep cool, Jasyn couldn't stop his hand from straying back down to his blaster as he wondered if Seth had failed and the authorities were coming after him anyway. Those did, after all, seem like rather purposeful, intentional, movements coming in their general direction.

"Injured was he, before shot being," he allowed, now hunkering down to carefully place the tips of one pincer against the Master's eye and part his lids. The iris revealed was rolled up, displaying red-shot whites. He gave the equivalent of a snort, and withdrew his hand.

"Perhaps longer to awaken, will he be..."

He trailed as the sound of approaching footsteps quickened, now entwining with each other in an arrythmic pattern suggestive of a person or persons unknown descending a staircase. A particularly echoing sort of staircase.

For some reason he didn't think they belonged to another approaching passenger...

His fears were brought to full fruition as two uniform clad men came into sight. Stepping onto the platform, they surveyed its entirety quickly before heading over to their little party. Their own hands fell to the grips of the blasters they wore on their hips.

His eyes shot to Jasyn, again somehow emitting rays of surprise even though he couldn't so much as blink, and then turned back to the official looking pair.

"Yeah, and I am Jasyn Lancaster, the guy that was looking for him," he added. "Just ask your Boss."

Pausing then, Jasyn stepped closer to the men, and handed the one who seemed to be in charge his comm after keying in Zekkin's frequency. In a few short exchanges, all was hunky dory and the men backed off with apologies after returning the comm.

She whirled, dragging Cazun along for the ride, only to be confronted by a uniformed man she had never before seen.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said politely enough. "But do you go by the name of Jharmeen?"

He paused for a moment, eyeing the luxuriant fall of her flaming hair, which of course was at the moment presenting itself at the very apex of unruliness. She could only stand quiet in her tracks, blinking with utter surprise at this unexpected development.

At her side, Cazun came into manly life.

"So who wants to know?" he bristled, placing the cloak of Valiant Knight about his shoulders and waving it with all the boldness he could muster. His little puff-up didn't faze the uniformed man one iota; he merely took a small backward step, one hand moving the slightest bit toward the blaster on his hip.

"I am seeking a fem named Jharmeen. A gentleman named Jasyn is seeking her. You seem to fit her description, and this is the vicinity where she was last seen, but she was in the accompaniment of--"

"I am Jharmeen."

The Dark Lady effectively shushed Cazun, now twining her arm a bit more tightly about his own and patting it with her free hand. For a moment she frowned, trying to remember names mentioned in passing long ago. Then she brightened.

"If the gentleman of which you speak is a Mr. Jasyn Lancaster, then I am the correct Jharmeen of whom you seek."

Introductions finally having gotten past the threat of fisticuffs, or worse, blaster fire, all present relaxed. That is, the uniformed man and Jharmeed did; Cazun wasn't too certain.

"This seems awfully odd--" he began, but was cut off as the uniformed man took a step to the side and waved one hand genteelly.

"If you will follow me, please," he stated, all the while taking out his comm-link and flipping it open.

"Jasyn, this is Seth. I've found her. Where are you?"

Taking the lead, he began walking back in the direction he had come from, the footfalls of the pair he had found assuring him that they were following right along.

...but that anxiousness on his part quickly disappated with Seth's incoming message.

"Oh thank the Fates," he said to himself, looking to K'kihl in obvious relief. Only then did he respond to Zekkin's comm. "K'kihl and I are probably not far below you, in a transport station."

"Take heart, my good friend, for all shall transpire in our favor," she said, unwittingly beginning to slip into the speech patterns of High Sith, even though she was yet speaking in Basic. If Cazum was surprised at this insidious alteration in her demeanor he didn't announce, but let himself follow along, wondering what in Fates he had gotten himself into.

Soon they came to the opening to the under-port that they passed mere moments before; without so much as an indication of it, the uniformed man headed down the steps. Jharmeen and Cazun could only follow; that the latter was a bit unnerved by being led beneath the main corridors of Tibannopolis was displayed by the tension suddenly coiling his muscles, and the slight skritch as he gritted his teeth.

Graysith merely stepped downward, pausing but for a moment a the foot of the stairs to let her eyes adapt to the dimness. Then--

"K'kihl!" she erupted with a smile of relief and rushed forward, once again dragging Cazun alongside of her. The Verpine rose to his feet, the motion dragging her eyes downward to the form that slumped there.

"At last, I have found you, my friend. And, Mr. Lancaster; how fortuitous it is that you have assisted in reuniting me with those whom I sought. Even this one."

She nodded toward the Master, who seemed to be starting to stir a bit.

At her side, the speechless Cazun could hold his tongue no longer.

"I thought you were trying to find your sister?" he blurted.

...or why she would have enlisted the aid of a stranger to find said sister. But Jasyn decided the time for such questions was not now. Smoothing over the frown with a more amiable look, Jasyn turned to Cazun. "Yeah, we know where her sister is," he then responded to the man, leaving things at that. After all, this was true enough, at least in regards to himself, although he idly wondered if Graysith had been referring to her blood-born sister, or the one she called her chosen sister, as he recalled.

Or if maybe it was all just a ruse to get some help. No matter. Not now, anyway.

"We have just left a very comfortable place, where we had a-- a drink together," she informed Jasyn. "It is not too far from here; perhaps that would be a good place to find food. But--"

She now directed a look toward the Master. That worthy was beginning to move around a bit, one hand raising to his head in an exploratory motion. It seemed he would soon be back to full consciousness; what mood that would entail, or how dangerous he would be to them, if at all, remained to be seen.

She jutted her chin at him.

"What do you suggest we do with him?" she asked, keeping for the moment quiet regarding her concern as to why he had been traveling with the Verpine, not to mention how that little quandary had come about to begin with. She was certain that answers would be provided, but not here, not standing on a transport platform while the members of the general populace came and went about them.

And as for his intentions, well... the Verpine yet lives. There is that. Either he means him, and by that us as well, no harm, or he is playing a ruse yet again. Either way, we now appear to have an upper hand over him; our concerns shall be addressed in the very near future.

She shot an inquisitive look toward K'kihl, indicating the slowly moving Master once more with her chin, but didn't say anything more about this.

Somehow she knew the Verpine was aware of her concern, and all would soon be revealed.

Maybe you could stun him again! a shoulder devil chortled.

"Well, barring stunning him again, I do have a nice little yacht tucked away in a docking bay not too far from here. Maybe we should get him there? He just got out of the medical center, after all, and he's been stunned because I at least thought he posed a threat," Jasyn said, for the first time sounding a bit guilty about his premature actions.

“There is no need to shoot me again,” he forced out of his mouth. The voice he addressed was familiar, an annoying growl belonging to an even more annoying human. His memory was swift though, and an analysis of the man showed there was no real threat.

“Mr. Lancaster,” he added. He forced an eye open – an act that he found distasteful and would make a point to not let it become habit. “If I meant you harm you would be in blissful oblivion by this time. But do not think such actions will go un--”

A flash of red caught in the corner of his eye. His other eye, ready or not, was forced open to help its twin take in the wonder of what he thought he had seen.

She was about to reply in turn when Jasyn blurted out in anger, causing her to bring her attention to full focus upon him. But before she could chide him, yet another interruption stabbed into the suddenly tense atmosphere.

"Listen, pal!" Having felt somewhat at odds what with the rapid change of events he had come to find himself in, the miner discovered a need to be needed by the lady once again. He took a grim step toward the recumbent form, holding out an accusatory finger in his direction.

"You'd better just lay off with the implications, and come clean about--"

He was interrupted by a velvet gloved touch upon his shoulder... but one which held within it the potential of steel.

"Dear Cazun, I thank you for your chivalry." Jharmeen gave him an equally gentle smile, even though his back was turned to her. That smile bored through him, guided by her ever so smoothly tightening grip; he tensed a moment then cocked his head sideways in acknowledgement.

Her smile broadened, but somehow conveyed no warmth.

"If we must speak on in this place, let us do so with at least some pretense of courtesy," she said in a low voice. "We do not wish to draw the attention of others to ourselves; you."

After first glancing quickly to the overly protective but simple miner, and then to Jasyn, she let her gaze fall upon the Master, where it remained.

"If you have words to say, make them brief and quiet."

And truthful, she added to herself, but did not bother to state this aloud. For when indeed had this one ever been completely forthright with any of them?

“My apologies,” he said. “But I am truly heartened to see you alive. Although I am sure you do not share that feeling, and I don’t blame you. I’ve done many things I am not proud of, and in retrospect I wish I could take them back. But time doesn’t quite work that way for most of us, does it?”

He coughed, the last bit of sickness now dissolving from his body as his powers finished the healing process. He made no indication to the human Jasyn of his strength, however. He had no desire to be stunned again and there were more urgent matters pressing him.

“There is something of the utmost importance I need to tell you,” he said softly. “Phalomir, my son, and your… well, whatever he is to you… “

The Master trailed off, his thoughts drifting ever so slightly. He knew there was a bond between Phalomir and the Dark Lady, a strong one. And that, he feared, would be the death of her. Of them all.

“I fulfilled my end of the bargain,” he said. “I gave him to the darkness. But it betrayed me! I meant to save us, to bring forth a power so great as to change our future. But it is using him to sway the balance of the Darker Realms…”

He could see the mixed looks upon all of their faces. Hate, confusion, mistrust. He grunted, wanting to explain and seek sympathy for his just cause. But not now, this was not the time for forgiveness.

A muscle along her slender jawline rippled as she clenched her teeth in anger with this.

The sheer impertinence...!

If it had not been for the sake of the dumbfounded Cazun Farr, who undoubtedly was growing even more dumbfounded by the minute at this sudden disclosure, she would have simply lashed out with her newly-recovered strengths, hopefully ridding herself of this thing before he could fathom what she would do. But she remained true to the words exchanged with Dark Lord Aelvedaar, and for the sake of the simple miner she merely leveled a flat gaze upon the Master.

Then the rest of his words filtered through her anger.

Phalomir... dead?

For the barest of moments an upwelling of grief so glacial it iced the blood in her veins rushed through her body, seeming to still her very heart as it sent her to stagger, but once, to the side. Cazun was there in a flash, holding onto her, keeping her upright, trying his best to do what he could in a situation that was growing stranger and stranger by the minute.

No. NO--!!

Her brilliant eyes closed, holding back tears... then reality reasserted itself, bringing with it what she could remember from her short time on Endor, as well as the warnings and dark sensations she had received from Shayla before that precious Link vanished from her being.

She drew herself regally upright, never letting her gaze move from the apparently weakened Master.

"You are wrong," she stated flatly, then spoke nothing further. Well she knew that indeed a Dark Phalomir existed, and that her own dear Chosen Sister and Adept was even now with him. The question that came to her mind, however, was which Phalomir was it who had been subjugated by the Dark, and turned into its pawn? A memory of his caring for her, his attentions given to her as they stepped forth unexpectedly onto the duff of Endor's forests flew into her head, rapidly followed by his rapid dissolution into madness.

How was she to take all this? On the one hand, the real Phalomir, her dear, dear love and true Master of her heart, was indeed the one who had flashed from calm into rage on that tiny moon; was this he, the one, who was being murdered by the Dark in front of her very eyes? If so, than that would preclude that Shayla had also come to that moon...

What had transpired there after her fall from the canopy?

But if Shayla had not gone to Endor at all, then the Dark Phalomir she stated she was attending would not have been there either. Which would indicate that her dear Lord was yet on that little moon, lost to a sudden madness whose source, albeit unknown, was more than likely a quite natural one.

She shook her head once, slightly, just enough to indicate the degree to which she believed in the latter scenario. Phalomir, her Phalomir, was not dead.

He couldn't be...

...and he really didn't like how the Master was speaking so openly and freely about such things in the middle of, well...

...the bloody wide open.

"Look, buster," Jasyn interjected, taking a step in closer to both the Master and Graysith even as she swayed slightly on her feet. His eyes, for the moment, were pinned on the Master. "Now is really not the time or the place to have this conversation," he pointed out, lowering his voice. "I'd like to get back to my yacht in the docking bay, before someone overhears something highly questionable, you know?"

He quieted for a moment then, eyeing Cazun, who had just overheard alot of strange things himself. And Jasyn didn't have a clue who the bloody hell he was in al of this. "Can we just get the kriffing hell out of here before we continue this conversation?" he ended with, his eyes flicking between Graysith and the Master as he awaited an answer from either one of them, but truthfully puttng a whole lot more stock in what Graysith would say than the Master.

...but to the sudden little flock of onlookers who had gathered nearby, obviously wondering what in all the Universe was going on.

"I believe you are correct, my friend," she allowed with a nod of her head in Jasyn's direction. "Perhaps it would behoove us to move our... discussion elsewhere, to somewhere more...

"Private."

Before anyone could acknowledge or reply, she turned to the dumbfounded Cazun Farr.

"I thank you, my dear Sir, for accompanying me as far as you have. Surely your presence has kept me from harm in this place, which is really quite strange to me. But I have found my friends; with their assistance, I shall surely find my sister, and shall continue with the business that we have before us in this city."

The miner couldn't stand it any longer. This night had rapidly digressed from a nice and normal one, from a scenario where he had donned the role of Knight in Shining Armor to come to the aid of a lovely -- oh so very lovely! -- damsel in distress, to help her find her sister and send her on her way, and maybe, just maybe...

To one approaching something he had watched on a fictional holovid.

He cast a somewhat flabbergasted look to all before remembering his former role; with some effort he calmed himself and stepped out to speak.

"Look, you guys," he said, emboldened by the fact that the only response to his initial outburst was one of mild interest from the others, judging by the way they all flicked their eyes his way without saying anything.

"I don't know what is going on here, but what I do know is that I promised this lady here that I would keep her safe while I helped her find what she seemed to have lost. Now there seems to be a lot of words going on right now, but in my book they hang back secondplace to actions.

"I'm not going to be dismissed like a lowly nek or something; I'm here to help this lady, and as far as I'm concerned you guys all are just talking circles and are getting her all confused."

He paused and took another step closer to Jharmeen.

"I'm not letting her go anywhere, not without me. When Cazun Farr makes a promise, he keeps it.

"You take this lady anywhere... and I'm coming along to make sure she stays ok."

He took a final step forward, now placing himself bodily in front of a personage who was perhaps the very last person in the Universe who actually needed his help. Of course he had no way of knowing that; glowering, he crossed his arms and tried to make himself look as formidable as he possibly could.

He looked around now, finally understanding their surroundings.

“I agree,” he said. “This is far too overrun by normal insignificants. Take us to your yacht, human, and we shall continue our discussion there.”

He then regarded the Dark Lady once more.

“Put all emotion behind you for the moment. It makes you weak, and weakness shall not keep you alive. I will still save the Sith, only now I am afraid we shall be fighting more than our old enemies. Keep this Cazun Farr for now.”

He then looked to the seething Jasyn.

He paused, not really caring if the Master struck him down. "Just saying."

Without another word though, Jasyn turned on his heel, keeping his blaster in hand, and headed back towards the docking bay as quickly as he could before he decided to turn around and stun the Master for a second time, secretly hoping that Graysith would take the initiative to shut the red-skinned windbag up herself. As he worked his way through the city, they began to lose the annoying onlookers, and Jasyn finally glanced back to see that yes indeedy everyone was following, Cazun Farr included.

Jasyn didn't know who the hell he was, or if he could be trusted, but anyone had to be better than the Master.

How did he know when they started talking about a red skinned humanoid in the sickbay here that this would just be his luck?

He followed the others into the interior hall, then to the mess hall. Everyone fanned out to claim a seat or wall space.

“Yes, this will do nicely,” he said. “But now, down to business.”

He looked the new human up and down, frowning.

"Now, listen here, buster!" he seethed as he shook himself free from those around him to step directly in front of the insouciant being.

"You just mind yourself! I don't know who the hell you are, or even more so who the hell you think you are, but all I know is that for a guy who was laying all helpless-like on the ground not too long ago you have about the biggest mouth I've ever heard word fall out of!"

The Verpine brought himself forth from the shadows to lay a manipulatory appendage along the miner's shoulder, only to be roughly rebuffed.

He sat down and leaned back.

“My son, the great and powerful Phalomir, proved to be adept with Sith magick at a very early age. Being a master myself, I could see things. Things yet to come. And I saw the return of an old enemy, who this time came bent on destroying the Sith. Only one thing could save us, and that was to bring a greater power to our race – greater even than Sith magick. A power wielded by one of our own Dark Lords, and sourced from the very bowels of the Darker Realms.”

He paused and scratched behind his ear.

Cazun snorted disdainfully. "Nope, not a one. Just a statement: you, buddy, are crazier than a Kowakian monkey-lizard!"

He shook his head, a slight smirk pressing across his features. But truth be told he did so primarily out of surprise at himself: he, a simple miner trying to eke out a quiet existence on this lonely gas world; he, who possessed something of the eye and soul of an artist...

...and he, who for the sake of a lady with locks of flame and eyes the rich shade of a purple sunset, would so quickly and uncharacteristically step out of his normal, comfortable paradigms to take on this wild-eyed man in verbal contest, before anyone else had a chance to step in.

He shook his head again, casting a quick look downward before flipping his face up and looking the Master straight in the eye.

"Sith, pfft! Everyone knows they haven't been around since the days of Palpatine; in fact, wasn't he about the last Master Sith in the galaxy?" Actually, even though he was from Ord Mandell, where all things dark and mysterious eventually surfaced in one form or another, he was at a loss in this regard. There might have been others, here and there, but if so they sure seemed to have remained hidden away in obscurity.

Another thought struck him; he cocked his head.

"So you're talking all Sithly and so on; do I take it I'm in the presence of one? If this is so, then answer me this:

"How is it that if you're the Master, it's your son who was supposedly given over to... to... well, to whoever the hell it is you're yapping about. These Darker Realms, as you say. If this supposed enemy is so dire and terrible, why send a boy to do a Man's work?

"You're the Master, or so you say. Why not do the job yourself? But instead you supposedly toss away your son, unless of course he was more powerful than you. Then it just seems he would do this by his own choice, 'cuz you wouldn't be able to stop him.

"So, I think you're just here to try and ruffle this pretty lady's feathers. And buddy, I don't cotton much to such things."

He shook his head, crossed his arms, and stood firm.

"Or else you're just one of the lousiest fathers I've ever heard tell of. Blood always should stick with blood, ya know.

"And just who is this enemy that's out to get these non-existent Sith anyway?" he finished.

The glyph on her forehead began to brighten ominously; shaking her head to cover it with her hair, she then turned abruptly to The Master.

"Shayla really is with this Phalomir, this Dark One?" she asked, gulping a little to keep her voice from trembling. But she knew the answer before he deigned to supply it:

After all, hadn't Shayla sent that last, cryptic message her way before the link they shared snipped off into oblivion? Oh dear Khaandon, what have you gotten yourself into, my sister...

He paused, eyeballing the Master, shaking his head again. "I'd love to know why the Revealer would not have shown Aeylmaar and I any scenario with Shayla and this dark guy if it was really true."

"When was this revealed to you?" she asked him then. For if it should turn out that what he had seen had taken place after the dire scenario painted by the Master, then chances were very good that Shayla was safe on Khar Delba with her beloved Father's Heir Apparent, that she had managed to free herself from the clutches of this Dark Phalomir before he had been able to obtain the heir he suddenly wished to have.

She would not give in to this willingly; I know my Sister and Adept. But why then did she disappear? Why did she cut off the Link you shared with her?

She pushed that thought aside, refusing to give it any credence. Shayla would not have turned to the Dark, would she?

Then her eyes widened with visions of her own daughter. That the halfling was strong, she had no doubt. Yet she had easily been overwhelmed by those Realms, had given herself to it, had served it, had even died for it...

She knew that Shayla was strong, but not nearly as much so as was ShaRhylla. For the halfling had the added advantage of her Sith blood, of the All that ran through it.

And she had fallen...

He paused then, chewing his lip a bit in thought. "Aeylly and I were looking at the Revealer, saw Shayla and ShaRhylla with Phalomir..."

He trailed, trying to remember more clearly.

Dammit if he hadn't gone on that drinking binge on the way here maybe all of htis would be coming back more clearly...

He jerked away from that thought, however, remembering jusst why he'd been drinking to begin with as he returned his gaze to Graysith.

"...I think that Panthar guy might have been there at some point too; the Revealer ended with those three taking off from some forest moon with an apparently unconcious Phalomir. There was some bizarre rift then and a ship with those kriffing demonic imps popped up and last we saw was of ShaRhylla, Phalomir, and Panthar, but no Shayla onboard..."

It would appear, then, that Shayla was indeed with this Dark Phalomir, one who had been given to the Realms by his own father, one who had then gone on the hunt as he/it did before, seeking a mate, a Queen. For wasn't that exactly what it had done in its former permutation as the entity Entaris?

She raised a hand to her forehead, shuddered. The warmth of a protective arm came suddenly to her shoulders as Cazun move to her, trying to comfort her even though it was quite obvious he hadn't a clue as to what all was happening here. She lifted her face to his, smiled a little, then turned back to Jasyn and the Master once again.

"Very well, then. It would appear that Shayla is indeed with this Dark Phalomir, as she has said to me. But she shall not struggle against him for long; I brought ShaRhylla back to the living, and I can do so again regarding Shayla."

Now she focused her attention solely on the sneering Master.

"Another point of concern is to find who exactly this Dark Phalomir really is. Is he indeed the true Dark Lord, or is he a clone?"

And which Phalomir this was mattered a great deal, in the Grand Scheme of things. Not only regarding each one's intentions toward the living, but their individual capabilities as well. One was good, the other the embodiment of evil, handed over to that evil on a veritable silver platter. But one was the true Dark Lord, the other a doppleganger. That would have ramifications as far as Sith society was concerned.

But more so than that, on a personal level it mattered very much to her. Was it indeed her Phalomir who had been given over? Or was he yet somewhere with her daughter and Panthar? Which of the two had she fallen in love with: the one who had gone to Endor's moon, or the one betrayed by his own father?

She bit her lip, her heart icing further. The only way to discover this, of course, would be to find the threesome Jasyn had seen, and see if that Phalomir knew her, loved her as she did him. Clone or not, if he treated her simply with the respect due the Dark Lady of the Warriors, then her Phalomir--

She refused to speculate any further.

"We must continue as planned, and seek out Phalomir and Panthar," she asserted. "For with their assistance we may be able to find and save Shayla."

She knew she had the physical prowess to do this by herself. She had traveled to the Darker Realms enough times, faced the evil incarnate in one form or another, and had emerged alive, if not victorious. But the last time it had taken everything she had to release her first, greatest love from his bondage to that hell; she didn't know if emotionally she could do the same with Phalomir. A moment's hesitation, and she would not succeed.

Simply put, she needed the others on her side in this.

"I will have my dear Sister beside me once more, and--"

Her gaze hardened, cementing upon the Master.

"--we will undo the great wrong you have committed, and bring peace to your son."

Be he clone or not.

"Endor, this was," he piped up in interjection. "On Endor. There was it, the Dark Lords Phalomir and Aelvedaar did I find, with the Lady unconscious.

"Into my care, placed her did they, to Bespin was I ordered medical assistance to seek. Now, accomplished is this; to Endor must I return, my mission success to broadcast.

"Promised, did I."

It was not her Phalomir who had been given over to the Dark. That one was... somewhere, safe with Panthar, and hopefully not being too vilified by her headstrong daughter.

For, hadn't Jasyn seen them together: Panthar, ShaRhylla, Phalomir and Shayla? All leaving Endor in a demon-ridden ship--?

For a moment she quivered, for indeed the demons were enough to give anyone reason for concern. Then she firmed, back on her original course. For unless the Dark had two Phalomirs to embody it, the one left behind upon Shayla's absence simply had to be her love. Even the great power of the All couldn't supercede the laws of physics:

Two differing bits of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time; neither can the same matter be in two places at once. At least not as far as any testable theories went...

Shayla was with the Dark Phalomir, who as part and parcel of the Darker Realms quite possibly had been aboard that demon-haunted ship, come to take her. The other Phalomir was with Panthar and ShaRhylla. As the one who had left Endor, now remaining with Panthar and her daughter, was the same Phalomir who along with Dark Lord Aelvedaar had placed her into the Verpine's care, directing him to take her to Bespin, he was therefore the one she fell in love with and still loved very deeply. And who loved her in turn.

She couldn't refrain from giving K'kihl a hug.

"Thank you, my friend," she said simply as she pulled away from the Verpine, whose every aspect of body language was now blaring forth the depth of his embarrassment. Smiling with him, she turned to the others again.

"Dark Lord Aelvedaar is safely on Khar Delba, which likewise harbors the Crystal Octahedron. We shall go there at once, and determine once and for all exactly what is happening in the Darker Realms, and to whom. And we shall locate my love, and bring him home.

"But we must remain vigilant, my friends. There was more than one clone made of Lord Phalomir; this I saw-- that is, Shayla told me of this, having seen them herself."

Not to mention there was also a clone, at least one, of herself, which she had seen with her own eyes.

The latter, however, she chose not to bring up at the moment. It was bad enough trying to prove which Phalomir was which; they certainly did not need the additional burden of wondering if she herself was the Real McCoy or not...

...but then promptly froze, Graysith's final words at last catching his attention. He turned, eyeballing the Master suspiciously. "Clones of Phalomir?" he questioned, his look growing more intense. "As in, more than one clone of him?"

But she knew they existed, as did K'kihl, apparently, for the vigorous manner in which he was nodding his head, his mandibles clacking in affirmation.

"Yes, my friend. Someone has made several clones of my love; as to who would do such a thing, or to what end, I have no idea."

She shot the Master a dark look before continuing.

"But this is a fact; it would appear now that either the original Phalomir, who I have never met, has been taken by--"

She caught a look of the dumbfounded Cazun Farr, and quickly switched rontos.

"--those who would oppose us, or a clone of him has. In either case, the one I love is alive and well; we must discover his location and reunite ourselves with him and his companions. Then with the assistance of Dark Lord Aelvedaar we will be strong enough to enter the Darker--

Again.

Then, now really not caring one whit what the Master had to say about anything, and not trusting him in the slightest, Jasyn turned and headed for the cabin, calling over his shoulder that everyone should strap in.

"We're outta here!" he finished with as he proceeded on into the cabin and worked the controls, warming the ship and prepping her for departure. In but a few minutes they were on their way, and coordinates for Khar Delba were programmed in to the sweet litte yacht.

After all, Jasyn had long since learned them by heart.

It wasn't even this bad when Case was murdered on Ord Mantell. In fact, as horrible as that experience was, it was at least something of the real world, of life and times, of something approaching normalcy.

But this...

"Wait a minute..." he started then, but paused. Visions of his life flashed before him: of the pain over his brother that would never go away, of the loneliness he lived in, day in and day out, finding solace only in his nightly visits to The Blue Asteroid.

He blinked, cast a glance about himself from one face to another, ended up falling once again into a pair of violet eyes that had somehow swiftly segued from being those possessed by a damsel in distress to someone who suddenly seemed to be the Empress of the Galaxy or something, judging by her change in tone of voice and bearing.

And Cazun, wouldn't you love to find out what that is?

He drew in a breath, and finally spoke up.

"Look, I don't know what the hell you are all talking about. But there's nothing holding me here; lemme toss in my towel with you, all right?

"A promise is a promise, after all," he finished, directing this final statement at the Chosen Daughter of the Sith...

...before falling against her slender frame with the initial thrust of the departing ship. He felt her stiffen against him; embarrassed, he straightened and regained his balance.

"Looks like I don't have any other choice now anyway, does it?" he grinned with utter acceptance of the hand Fate had this moment dealt him.

And how much drink he would need to even make that amount of time tolerable.

Satisfied that they were on course and checking the ETA...with a scowl...Jasyn got to his feet and headed back to where everyone else stood in an awkward sort of impasse. K'khil clicked his manibles every so often; Graysith was annoyingly unreadable; and the Master...

...well, by Jasyn's estimations he looked about as full of himself as anyone could possibly get. Which was saying alot considering all the things Jasyn had seen in the past few years. The newcomer, by contrast, stood in quiet and almost humble firmness; looking ready to take things on but not overstepping his place for the moment.

Bloody Hell, there must be a God, somewhere. Maybe this guy could help make the next three standard days a little more tolerable...

"ETA is three standard days," Jasyn then said aloud. "You all can just sit around or stand around if you like...

...but I just got this baby restocked on Bespin with food...and drink."

He paused then, a lopsided grin forming at the corners of his mouth. "The galley's open," he said, nodding in its direction, and secretly hoping the Master didn't plan on taking him up on the offer but resigning himself...rather glumly...to the fact he just might have to suck things up and deal with it.

Kriffing Hell...

Shaking himself from these thoughts, Jasyn turned to Cazun Farr. "So how about a drink, ahhh..."

He paused,frowning. "What did you say your name was again?"

Then Jasyn reappeared.

He grasped the offer like a life-line.

"Hey, the name's Farr, Cazun Farr!" he said as he made a bee-line to the man, all the while trying to maintain an attitude approximating something akin to aplomb. Needless to say, he failed miserably, since mere moments before his bravado had found itself drizzling down around his toes, and he had actually been trying to figure out a face-saving way to back out of this whole kit n' kaboodle...

But Jasyn looked like someone he could hang with, and that might make things a tad wee better.

Coming up to the man, he reached out a hand and shook Jasyn's. Then he planted himself in front of him, hands on hips.

"Sounds good to me, pardner!" he effused. "I could use a little, ahhh... down time."

No fooling, Cazun; was THAT ever the understatement of the year! All this talk of clones and weird places, and peeps of power, and then there was the fact that "his Lady" was suddenly turning into exactly that: some kind of Lady, or nobility, or something or other; the very thought made his tongue stick to the roof of his mouth.

...odds and ends of different species and cultures, some of which he'd never tasted in his life but simply intrigued him by the description. Along with that, he'd stocked up on quite a bit of good food...

...but at the moment, that really wasn't what he was after. As they entered the galley, Jasyn halted, motioning towards the stocked cupboard.

"Hey, I'm not sure what you like, pal. I stocked up on quite a few things so you might just want to have a look for yourself."

He paused then, waiting for Cazun to make his choice...

...and then realizing something. "Oh, and the name is Jasyn Lancaster; Technical Specialist for Eagle Enterprises."

And Sith Brandy aficiando...

What he would give for some of that...

The bottles and glassware shone like a rainbow, reflecting light from their surfaces that flashed on the bulkheads, bringing yet more color into the otherwise fairly all-white interior. For a moment he stood in apparent quandary, before his eye fell on something a vivid, neon yellow.

I don't know what's in that bottle, that's a fact, he thought to himself, but it's what she was drinking tonight.

And I aim to find out...

Not bothering to inflict Jasyn with the burden of tending bar, he simply went to the shining array and took hold of the gleaming, saffron bottle. Moving to a nearby table, he settled into the chair with a sigh of comfort.

Then he popped the top with a practiced flick of this thumb, and took a hearty swig.

"Ahhh, now there's something to warm a man on a cold, cold night," he asserted as, after taking another, smaller, drink he set the bottle on the table. He slung his elbow over the back of his chair, twisting to watch Jasyn as the man stood before the bottles, locked in his own decisions.

"Hey pal, when you make up your mind what you want to drink, c'mon over here and join me. We can drink a toast to... to... well, to whatever the hell it is we're doing, and wherever the hell it is we're going.

"And--" he finished, picking up his bottle and gesturing emphatically with it.

"You can tell me just what the hell is going on here! Clones? Dark Something-or-Other? And just who is this gal I came in with, if I might be so bold as to ask?"

He took another big swig.

Galaxy's edge, but I'd like to really find that out...!

Oh Kriffing Hell, where to begin. This guy really had NO CLUE what he was tangling with. No clue at all. And they were headed to Sith space, with the blasted Master onboard, and Graysith's daughter and Stargazer doing gods knew what while one Phalomir or another was doing this or that.

Bloody Hell.

Jasyn stepped up to the seat on Cazun's right, reaching a hand out and turning it around. Then he sat in it, throwing one arm over the back of the chair while popping the cork out of his drink in the same manner as Cazun had done a few moments before. He took a hearty guzzle, letting the contents burn down his throat completely before returning his gaze to the other man.

"The ahhh... gal you came with is known by several names...the Dark Lady, Jharmeen...and Graysith."

Jasyn paused, letting that particular bombshell settle. Then, "As to what we are doing and where we are headed....

...I don't even know where to begin, or how much I should tell you."

Jasyn paused, scowling. "Once you learn about what's going on, you're going to be tied to it, and it to you. And depending on what the Master back there has planned or is planning, the less you know is probably better."

Jasyn saw the look that was rising in Cazun's eyes. He wasn't good at negotiations and talking to others like Terrin or Matt...

...hell, someday they had to get to him, if it wasn't already too late...

"But you might as well know this much. That horned fellow is a Sith, and not the Sith like those that run around blasting people with Force lightning and wacking them with lightsabers. Oh no, much more than just that. Sith is his race. And there are more of them.

"Yeah," he finally agreed as he settled back in his chair, now flinging one muscular leg over an arm.

"That weird dude, the one you say is, ahh... well, Sith... well, he called her Dark Lady. I remember that.

"But--" he took another, longer draw on the bottle. When he set it down, it's contents had been reduced by half; a familiar warm fuzziness was beginning to settle, that same fuzziness that thankfully blanketed out the horrific memories of Case, night after night after night...

"But!" he nearly exclaimed, yanking his wandering thoughts back to the here and now.

"What exactly does this mean, this 'Dark Lady?' And who is this Shayla she's talking about?"

Pausing, Jasyn upturned the Whyrene's Reserve once more, suddenly realizing it really wasn't doing much to calm his rising concerns.

Dammitall, why hadn't he gotten some Sith brandy before he'd left Khar Delba?!?

At length he finally lowered the bottle again, the look in his eyes darkening. "This Shayla person she keeps talking about used to be an info smuggler, an owner of the company Stargazer Corporation. She is also a Force user, and has become a sort of student to Graysith and later more like a second or something. Graysith refers to her as a sister. Only she's been on the lam after losing a child, and might be up to no good."

He paused, his look only darkening more as he went for another drink, this time to completely empty the contents of the bottle.

Some sort of Big Wig with the Sith... who aren't what I'm supposed to think they are, whatever that is, but apparently some kind of important race in the galaxy. Yet this lady is a leader to them somehow? She sure doesn't look Sith, if that's what the evil-eyed fellow is; hmmm... maybe they're gender different?

He shook his head slightly, more than a bit discomfited by this. One moment, he was Knight in Shining Armor, the self-proclaimed protector of one he had been led to believe was a true damsel in distress, one who needed his help.

But it seemed that was a ruse...

He scowled, drained the bottle, slammed it down and bounced from his seat. Stalking to the bar, he hunted quickly before finding another one of the same. Popping the top then and there, he turned to go back to his seat, the bottle held to his mouth, the warming liquid gushing down his throat as recompense for his suddenly cleaved hopes and self-expectations.

Case... again...

"Ok!" he all but snarled as he threw himself back into his seat. A few moments crawled by, moments in which he was lost to everything about him, drowning in a pair of violet eyes that suddenly seemed to be laughing at him. With a start he yanked himself away from his pity-party, realizing again the predicament he was in, wondered yet what he should do...

Only to discover suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, that he was intrigued...

"Okay," he said, his voice calmer now. "So she's some kind of big leader of a race who isn't what it's thought to be. Ok. So tell me again where it is exactly that we're going...

"And why."

"We're headed to a planet hat is uncharted, one of two that is populated with these Sith. To be blunt, we are headed there for reinforcements so we can figure out how to handle this clone situation and Shayla, with the help of the Sith bigwigs there."

Leaving it at that for the moment, Jasyn vacated his seat, checked the cupboard once more for a few moments before selecting a bottle with dark blue liquid in it, and returned to his seat. He didn't know what the hell he was getting ready to drink, but the dealer had promised a serious punch, as good if not better than WalknFall.

He certainly hoped so.

“I suppose I should share your joy,” he said, looking away from everyone left in the cabin. “My son, my true son, is most likely alive and whole and not corrupted by the evil powers of the Darker Realms.”

He turned and paced again.

“But on the other hand,” he continued, “Powerful, dark forces now inhabit the soulless body of a Sith, who happens to possess the same potential for power as the real thing. More, perhaps, if the cloners did their jobs –“

He stopped. The silence in the room was deafening. He turned to the Dark Lady and sighed.

"So by your admission, you arranged for the creation of several clones of your own son, possibly having his inherent powers enhanced in the process, then offered one of them up to the Darker Realms in order to gain its assistance against the in-coming foe of which you speak. Fairly commendable if ordered by the Triad. I--"

She paused abruptly as the brush of a distant, suppressed memory tickled her subconscious. Shaking her head, she tried again.

"Very well, you plotted with the Darker Realms, a plot apparently of your own devising, but one which threatened the very life of your own son," she finally stated in an equally flat tone of voice. "What happened to the one you--"

And what of your own? an insidiously silken whisper only she could hear finally broke through. The Three, the Ones taken from you by Roan; Those Who Served to bring back the Sith... were they now even alive? Is this now any different than what happened with your own children...?

She drew in a breath to chase the ghosts away, then straightened.

"Be that as it may, the deed is done," she asserted quickly, now beginning herself to pace about the cabin a bit. "Exactly how it was that you were... enlightened as to this dire enemy now en route to us, as well as how you came into contact with the Darker Realms to begin with to create such an alliance, are matters to be addressed at some future point.

"For now..."

She stopped and turned in place, steadying her gaze upon the Master. For while she still did not trust him one iota, there now seemed to be a strange sort of connection between them, one which instigated within her a surprising surge of pity.

"For now we must find where your true son is, as well as both the clone you offered up to the Realms and the one who escaped from its pod. We must decide what to do with the remaining clones as well; if one has somehow either broken free from its pod or been loosed by another, then the same might happen to the others.

"It is this latter thought that is in fact most worrisome: if you did not release this second clone, who did? Unless--"

Her brow thundered as upon it the Glyph began to flicker ominously.

"Unless the clone you offered to the Realms is indeed the one holding my dear Sister in its thrall, which of course would mean that you freed it from its pod, and thus are lying to us still."

“I assure you,” he said at last, “I did not free anything from its pod. I stopped the program, it was futile. Only the original would do, I knew that after so many attempts. So many… you see, without real memories, the whole thing would be a failure. And in those clones the memories would not transfer. Not completely. Not without time… so, so much time.”

The Master turned to Graysith and looked her directly in the eyes. His face was solemn, stoic.

“The only way to save my son from the fate that awaited him was to give him a new life. No, a new lifetime. It was necessary for many reasons, the least of which being to provide a cover for the stolen memories. Tell me, has he ever told you the insane stories of where he comes from? How he could possibly be who and what he claims to be?”

He sat for a few seconds longer, letting his innards regulate themselves before finally setting his bottle quietly on the table.

"Has anyone considered that maybe, just maybe, these Sith might be behind all the weirdness that's going on?" he finally ventured, thoughts of his and his brother's betrayal dancing laughingly on the backs of his eyes.

"We might be heading straight into the fire..."

"Absolutely, and on more than one ocassion," he said, eyeing the bottle in his hand as though he suddenly was suspicious of its contents. "But as much as I don't trust them, I'm not sure they are all bad."

He paused. No, Jasyn, a shoulder devil snickered. You just think that of 99.9% of them, right? And that is on a good day. You've seen them flip-flop sides so many times it isn't even funny...

"Trouble is, with what we think might be incoming, and with other things I've seen, as much as I don't trust the Sith I'm operating on the assumption that the enemy of my enemy is my ally."

Stating this, Jasyn put the bottle of whatever-it-was to his lips, and took a good long swallow.

How he really wished he had some Sith bradny right now.

"So-oo-ooo..." he began then, his voice soft and low. He set his bottle down carefully, placed his arms on the table, leaned toward his new drinking buddy.

"We're en route to an uncharted world, filled with people that other people either have no idea exist, or at least think they're someone or something else. This culture, these... Sith, have powers, you say.

"Right?"

Jasyn gripped the bottle in his hand a little more tightly, but didn't take another drink. He leaned in to the table a bit himself, and his voice lowered. "Oh kriffing hell, yes," he responded, his brown eyes intense. "Enough so that I really would rather have them on my good side if and when all Hell breaks lose in the Universe..."

He trailed, his brown eyes darkening. His last statement was, after all, a whole lot more literal than metaphorical.

Now Cazun took up his bottle again, armed himself with a long swallow. It was almost as if that icy knot in the pit of his stomach was trying to take over his body, his very mind, and that if drenched with enough alcohol it would at length melt away. He moved the bottle from his lips, eyed Jasyn, then tossed the rest down in a final gulp.

"Shipsh?" he finally said, his words beginning to slur just a bit. With a bit of effort he rose to his feet, and leaning a touch to port returned to the bar. There were no more bottles of the glowing yellow liquid; this time he settled for something deeply and richly licorice-black. Opening it in mid-stride, he plopped heavily into his seat, held the bottle up and tried to peer through it. It remained as opaque as space; without thinking much of anything then he tossed down a good quarter of it's inky contents.

"How're they 'gainst shipsh? We-weapons, ya know... blazzterz in so on..."

...and decided with disgust that it really didn't do the trick. For a moment he entertained the notion that perhaps that was because he'd become nothing short of a functional alcoholic. But that was only for a moment. He actually chuckled at the thought...

...and then snickered a bit at Cazun's query. "Let's just say it'd take a lot more than those things to take'em down. Which is a good thing, with the Darker Realms."

He paused then, heading to the liquor cabinet and retrieving another bottle himself of who the blazes knew what, popped the cap and took a swallow...

...then paused mid-drink as the image of a reprimanding Terrin popped into his mind's eye. With a scowl he lowered the bottle down to the table, heeding the unspoken warning. Then he wondered if maybe Cazun meant something else with his last query.

"As to the Sith own weapons and ships...well, they don't use blasters or more updated weapons, they use swords n old school stuff like that. But bloody hell, their ships..."

He trailed, his eyes growing intense with the fervor that only rested in the eyes of a technology-loving person. "Damn, they are awesome."

"Sw-ords?" he finally gulped out, letting the black bottle hang in mid-air. "H-how th' hell c'n they be s' p'wrful, 'f they o-only got firkin' SWORDS to fight with?"

He stopped a moment, marveling at the oxymoronish atmosphere into which this conversation had suddenly skedaddled off into. Then Jasyn's final words sunk in.

"They got ships...?"

It was getting more an more difficult to transpose the words in his head into those coming from his mouth. He waved his bottle vaguely, now becoming irritated with his growing inability to get his thoughts across clearly. For they seemed crystal clear as they marched across his brain, stomping and shouting and waving warning flags right and left.

What did somebody once cry out, somewhere? "Wreak havoc...?"

He paused, really wanting to take another sip of his drink, but becoming increasingly aware that if he did he wouldn't stop with just one. "As for what the Sith can do with just swords, that's all they really need. Like the Jedi, who just use those kriffing sabers, the Sith have other powers which more than make up for the outdated weapons."

Quieting then, Jasyn suddenly really just wanted to get completely off this topic, realizing that the more he said the more intertwined Cazun would be in all of this, whether he wanted to be or not. "You just really won't understand it at all til you see it...

...and that is if you don't manage to get yourself out of all of this while you still can. I mean..."

It was the same as it was with Case. Only then he hadn't listened to himself enough to speak up; he had gone along with his younger brother's pipe dreams, even though he knew the danger their standing up the the Picker's Ring entailed, and what had become of that...?

Slowly he shook his head, staring down at the ring be-smeared tabletop. His hand, still grasping the ebon bottle, lifted, revealing another ring which glistened wetly. He stared at it, seeing his brother, seeing purple eyes, seeing a shadow of himself hovering somewhere behind it all...

He shook his head again, then raised his face to Jasyn.

"You don't see it, do you?" he finally said, the words flat with seeming cold-stone sobriety. Thoughts of falling into a pair of liquid violet eyes turned into an entirely different matter than he at first hoped for. For here were these people, people who seemed to gallivant about with the Powers That Be, with those who would bring about the Destiny of the Universe with no more thought than if they were sitting with them at a weekend social event.

Or even, in fact, were said Powers That Be...

Swallowing, he pressed on, a sudden urgency darkening the look he now pinned on Jasyn. Opened his mouth, struggling again with his obstinately elusive thoughts. Dammit, he had it, he had something, had to get it across, it was important...

Why couldn't they see it?

"Womprats," was all he could garble out. He lifted the bottle, thought once... thought about it again, and raised it to his lips. Slammed it down, dragged an arm fiercely across his stubborn lips, and tried again.

"Why the firkin' HELL would a sandcat... no, a RANCOR, give his hiney about a lil ol' womprat?" was all he could manage. The relief of getting at least part of what had been troubling him out into the open sent him sagging against one palm, elbow propped on the table, the other lending support by the pressure it applied upon the bottle now glued to the tabletop.

"Don'tcha th'nk tha they mi th'nk y'guyz mi know a lil too much...?"

...or if just wanted to take a good bite out of the bottle itself. As it stood, Jasyn was pretty sure that if his grip grew any tighter the botte was going to shatter entirely.

And that would be a waste of good...well, whatever-the-blazes this stuff was.

With effort, Jasyn relaxed his grip, really considering Cazun's words...

...and realizing how much indeed he agreed with them. After all, how did he really know the Sith cared one whit about anyone but themselves? They certainly worked in and out of helping them as it suited their own needs...

...and had no issue turning them away when needed. After all, where the bloody Hell was Matt? Was he imprisoned on K'eel Doba...

...or dead? When he and Panthar had only gone there to offer help...? Aeylmaar sure didn't hesitate to turn them away...

...and what about Graysith, who made a blood oath, then renigged on it when she no longer needed the other person?[/i]

"N'mind 'bout then," he slurred, blinking to bring the two images of Jasyn in front of him back into one again. "Worry 'bout now.

"I th'nk y' bedder spill out ev'rth'ng y' know 'bout all this m'zry, ummm... MST'ry. I'm innit now too, ain' I? 'mean, I'm here, ain' I?"

His right hand raised, fisted save for his forefinger which he slammed end first on the table top: once, twice, and yet a third time.

Acceptance. She knew where he was going with this, that he was going to tell her the absolute Truth of it. And to be truthful herself, she didn't know if it was something she really wanted to hear.

How quickly can walls of stone transmute into the cotton stuff of dreams...

"He- he mentioned something," she began evasively, now struggling to reduce the power still flaring upon her forehead. It was strangely obstinate, fighting against her; it took all her strength, all the tricks and processes taught to her by Dark Lord Aelvedaar, to reduce it far enough down the electromagnetic spectrum that at least the others could begin to see her face once again. Upon the heels of that inner battle came the by-now innate follow-up: catching every bit of stray radiation so those around her would not fall dead in their tracks.

When the Glyph was at last under control...

Or at least allowed itself to be, the disquieting thought followed.

...she let herself continue.

"He has spoken to me of his past, but not very much of it. It was rather... strange."

She stopped, unwilling to go on. For as curious as she had always been about this -- not merely the entirety of the story itself, but the reason why Phalomir would only dole it out to her in tiny crumbs, as if offering them up to an even tinier bird -- she was quite suddenly stricken down to the heart of every cell in her body that the knowing was going to be much worse.

Jasyn's eyes defocused as he thought about that one single word...

...and hadn't a clue in bloody hell where to begin.

"I don't know what to start with," Jasyn admitted honestly, shaking himself from his thoughts and looking directly at the waiting Cazun Farr. "Guess I can just start right from the beginning," he then continued with a shrug. "You see, a few years ago my boss, the owner of Eagle Enterprises, came back from some business with a slimey piece of Imperial worm-ridden filth Moff with this lady by the name of Galen. She was--is--an incredibly gifted pilot, and in the course of falling in love with her, my boss--Terrin Danner--found out she had this Sithy sister who you have already met, for she is our red-headed, violet-eyed Dark Lady out there who goes by the names of Graysith and Jharmeen. Graysith wasn't so nice back then...she was after her sister Galen and we were gonna help Galen get some sort of magic device to fight against her sister with. We got on this Sith world, Galen and Terrin got captured...

...and we eventually got this device. But then this Sith demon from these Darker Realms you heard of came out of nowhere and ripped Terrin's arm off, nearly killing him. Lots of things happened, Terrin and Galen got split up a couple of times, first by a bounty hunter by the name of Sorben Tarnus then by some blasted Imperial Admiral by the name of Actar...

...and eventually the two of them got married, only after this nasty evil Sith by the name of Roan had his way with Galen and practically destroyed her. But even after all of that Galen--who by the way, did I mention was pregnant with a kid that had some of these powers that Graysith has--blasted off, afraid of hurting someone. Terrin and us went after her, we ended up back in the Sith worlds, and to protect Galen from this Roan character, Terrin ended up making a blood oath with Graysith. You see as bad as some of these Sith we'd dealt with to this point were, this Roan was even more evil...

...and we knew that if we had to throw our lot in with anyone, Graysith and her band would be the only ones who could truly protect Galen and the baby. And they gave their word. And all was hunky doryt for a while, until all hell broke lose again. You see, they needed Galen's baby for some magick to bring their race back, and at the time this hadn't happened."

Jasyn paused, taking a swig of his drink, and noting the puzzled look in Cazun's eye. He was pretty sure he probably sounded insane by this point, but even so he continued. "Look, I know it sounds mad, and I'd agree, but I was there through all of it...

...that is, when I wasn't drunk out of my skull with Sith brandy. And buddy, that stuff...

...well all I can say is that hopefully some day you will get a taste of it. But wait--where was I? Oh yeah, bringing the Sith race back and getting thrown out of the Sith worlds. Well, when we all got split up from there, Terrin and Galen split up too. She went off with this bounty hunter Tarnus, who now works for the Empire, and we went back to Eagle Enterprises. But then Terrin realized how stupid he was, and went after her. We ended up in Imperial prison, Terrin and I, and were told that Galen was dead. Graysith sprung us from there, and in time we found out Galen was alive. Terrin ended up going after her, came back with her...

...but in the process Graysith's darling daughter--whose age was acclerated to that of a teenager--messed with his mind. I can't believe I'm saying this, but Terrin actually died. We ended up all going our seperate ways once again...

...but now somehow in all of this the Sith actually had been brought into this time and place, where they really don't belong. I can't really remember when this did happen...

...but in time some Sith by the name of Thoran--who is crazy if you ask me--helped us bring Terrin back to life. We've been allies of the Sith at times since then, and at other times just mere humans to them."

Jasyn paused again, shrugging. "It's really confusing. They claim the Yuuzhan Vong are incoming, and some of them don't seem so bad....

...but some of them are very unpredictable, sometimes friends and at other times practically enemies. And Graysith, she's got this sidekick she sometimes calls her Adept and other times calls her Chosen Sister. Her name is Shayla Stargazer...

...and I just don't trust her. She too seems to be a buddy at some times, and not at others. And she has been cut off from Graysith and at other times her closest pal....

...and now it seems she is off with Graysith's aforementioned fun-loving daughter and that yahoo Master's son--or a clone of him. This Master seems so-and-so seems to think his son is the answer to all, and the son is in love with Graysith."

Jasyn sighed heavily. "I don't know any of this makes any bloody sense, seeing as I've been living it the past few years and I don't even know what to make of it."

Most of the discourse blurred together...

...a human was Sith and tried to kill her sister, who married some guy named Terrin, who Jasyn knew, and Tarnus -- hey, wasn't that the name of the guy making himself known around the Galaxy lately? Maybe they were brothers or something -- got into the act and there were demons running around...

Demons?!

...who ripped off people's arms... and something about a civilization being brought back by a baby--?

Cazun blinked, sat up stiffly, made a "T" with his hands, palm-to-fingertips.

"Whoa, WHOA, pal!" he blurted. "Wha--? They came back? From where!? And these Sith used a baby?!?!"

He stuttered to a dumbfounded halt. Picked up the bottle. Stared at it a short time before quietly setting it down again, untouched.

"Wha the firkin HELL kind of power do they have?!!? And does that guy back there--" He fisted his hand with his thumb sticking out, which he jerked over his shoulder for emphasis.

"Yeah buddy, he's got those powers," Jasyn responded. "And as to what powers they are... Well."

He paused for a moment, his look darkening impossibly more. "You've at least heard of what a Force user can do. Well, I'm pretty sure they can do all that...and then some. They can actually make things move through space, from planet to planet. They can act on time even."

Jasyn shook his head. "You see, the Sith--that is, the race--were wiped out by Dark Jedi some 4,000 years ago. One of them, this Sorceror dude named Aelvedaar, managed to do something to save himself. He used our lovely Dark Lady to bring himself into this time. When we were with the Sith, with Galen's baby, they were supposedly going to use the baby, and one of Graysith's own, to do something or other and pull the entire race--through time I guess--to this day in age. In the end I'm not really sure how they did it, but it wasn't with the two girls like originally planned. That I know."

"Wha- what... what the Hell would they need with us, then?" he finally stammered. "Gods, man; we're less than a womprat is to a rancor! We- we're dirt! No, the bugs that crawl through the dirt; why are we going with them right smack into the fire, to their world, and one that's uncharted yet???"

He stopped, wide-eyed, a cold sweat suddenly springing upon his brow. That wide-eyed look settled on the bottle again; with a shaking hand he snatched it up and drained it in one gulp.

Wreak havoc? No... CRY havoc, and let loose the neks of war. And he knew that if he strained hard enough, he'd hear their full-throated cries somewhere against the dim backdrop of the Galaxy...

"Well, there are two things," Jasyn said aloud, perhaps more for himself than for Cazun. "Number one, Dark Jedi, measly non-Sith, managed to wipe them out and then took on their race's name. And secondly, the Yuuzhan Vong apparently scare the Hell out of the Sith of the future enough that they are back here, leading me to believe that maybe they too, as non-Sith, are able to destroy the Sith. And they have come back here, to a day in age not so long after mere humans were able to defeat the Vong."

Jasyn paused, scratching his head, actually surprised that what he was saying was making some sense.

Kriffing hell, maybe he had drunk too much already...?

"And to add to all that, it was through the actions of a human female--the Dark Lady-- that any of them are here at all. There must be something about us, something we have that they don't, something they need."

Jasyn fell silent, and finally took a long swallow from the bottle he had been gripping without drinking so much as a drop from it for quite some time.

Then it struck him.

He reached out across the table, one hand slamming onto Jasyn's wrist with a grip of steel.

"Jasyn," he began, his voice lowered now to an intense whisper. "Think of it, man. What you just said."

He paused a moment, trying to put fleeting instinct into damning reality, knowing the two somehow were one.

"These guys, this-- this Sith culture, according to what you said, they were destroyed by Dark Jedi, whoever the hell they are. A branch of regular Jedi? Whatever; they're mostly just a religion, one with people. Powerful people, but people anyway.

"These same people who defeated the Vong - defeated the firkin' Yuuzhan Vong, Jasyn! The same cultures, with the same abilities. Somehow they managed not only to defeat the scariest enemy ever to threaten us, but they managed to put away a culture that according to you can play around with Time itself!"

He paused a moment, letting that sink in before stretching out across the table and grabbing onto Jasyn's shirtfront. He bored his eyes into the widening pair in front of him.

"Think about it, man! What do the two have in common? Vengeance, that's what!"

And you know about that only to well, don't you Cazun? Isn't that what you're feeling, wanting... isn't that why you ran to Bespin, to keep the Hound of Vengeance at bay... but it's not the one chained to the Picker's Ring now, is it?

Oh, no...

He shook Jasyn, trying to keep his personal ghosts from impeding him from saying the most important words he felt he'd ever spoken in his life, or ever would again.

Swallowed, pulled Jasyn closer, bringing his lips up against the man's ear.

Whispered.

"What if that's what this is about? You said the Vong were coming back; what if it's to join forces with these Sith, and attack the entire firkin Galaxy?

"The Lady with the purple eyes is a damned traitor; her and the other one are probably happy as mudrakers that we're going along with them so willingly--

"Jasyn, don't you see?" He pulled back, thrust a trembling finger out to the side, pointing outward, through the bulkhead, outward into the ravening zones that screamed outside the ship.

"Before I met you, I'd never heard of these guys, and I guarantee you two hunnert percent, that neither has probably everyone else in the Galaxy.

"You guys all know too much! You're heading right to the altarstone, and they're gonna tear out your heart!"

With that he slumped back, grasped the empty and raised it to his lips. Finding it empty he threw it off to one side, where it splintered into an array that glittered and blinked a screaming warning, over and over and over. Lurching to his feet, he made it to the bar, grabbed the nearest bottle and after one or two attempts opened it. Staggering back, he fell into his seat, rearranged himself, and took a mighty draught.

He held the bottle out to Jasyn.

"Does this thing have an escapepod?" he finished with.

But dammit, how the bloody hell had Aelvedaar been able to find Graysith on a blasted Yuuzhan Vong ship in another Universe? And how did the Sith know about the Vong incoming at all, at a time well before Phalomir and the Master even were around?

Bloody Kriffing Hell, this was well more than enough.

"Dammit, you are right!" Jasyn half-exclaimed, half whispered. Then, as if suddenly really remembering who was only a few steps away from them--for in fact this was the case--Jasyn fell silent.

Kriffing hell, they were in hyperspace. He mouthed the word "hyperspace" in Cazun's direction, hoping the other man was going to follow. For unfortunately there would be no way to get offship via an escapepod at this moment in time. And that aside, there was no telling where in the blazes they would end up if they did get off via a pod anyway.

Jasyn scowled. But even so, an idea was forming. "Hey, you know, since this isn't my ship and she hasn't been serviced since I don't know when and has just been sitting around, maybe we should take a look and see how she's doing. You know, ahhh...check her power and fuel cells and all and see if we can get to where we are going. It is a long trip after all," he observed in a quiet voice, cocking a brow in Cazun's general direction...

...and hoping like hell that he was following.

Relief flooded through Cazun with the realization that Jasyn believed him. And if they were lucky, they'd make it off-ship, and could head out with the damning information they knew. Back to who? The Impys, maybe; he didn't have anything personal against the Imps, but man they did bog things down with red tape.

Maybe they'd head off to this Terrin guy; yeah, that made more sense...

"I'm c'ming!"

With what he was planning in his head, Jasyn hoped no one would ever have the slightest idea, save for he and Cazun. But then, K'khil was onboard too, and as far as Jasyn was concerned, he was a good guy...

or Cricket. Or whatever.

He made note to hopefully have a discussion with the Verpine when a good time arose. Heading then to the cabin of the ship, Cazun right behind him, Jasyn took a seat at the pilot's station, first pulling up the navcomputer. For a long few moments he considered it, then looking to Cazun, who had taken up the copilot's chair.

"Allright," he then said aloud, satisfied with his developing plan. "We haven't moved that far past Bespin, but it would take some time to get there via realspace. We are actually closer the world of Nkllon." He paused, keying something in to the computer, and keeping things extremely close to the vest. For while he trusted Cazun, he didn't want another soul on ship to potentially overhear what they were up to, not even K'khil. Still, the Verpine would see past any mechanical glitch he would claim the ship to have...

...and he didn't want to risk tipping the Master or Graysith off inadvertantly. He was actually hoping he would get the chance to, at some point, speak with the Cricket before everything went down and talk some sense into him. In no time, with a series of keystrokes, Jasyn programmed in a faulty set of commands into the navcomputer that would in turn damage it enough so that hyperspace travel would be impossible...

...and so that they would have to stop off on Nkllon. That was, of course, if he and Cazun didn't have to bail before even then. Even as this thought began to form in Jasyn's mind, the ship began to shimmy and shudder, and her steady hold within the confines of hyperspace began to collapse.

Until his keen senses felt a change; there was something new slowly developing between them. Even though his forte was anything and everything to do with engineering, being a sensitive creature by nature he was really quite good at reading body language. Thus, even though he didn't know exactly what may have prompted it, he easily felt the emotional switch within Jharmeen from guarded distrust to something that felt suspiciously like pity toward their former enemy, all enmeshed in a slight dropping of her guard...

That surprised him... but not so much as the sudden, shimmying lurch of the ship.

He would have blinked if he could have; instead he stiffened, clattered his mandibles, turned from an interesting doo-hickey upon the bulkhead that he had been studying to address the other two.

They only stood as they were, engrossed in their conversation.

He remembered then; some species just weren't as keenly attuned to things mechanical as he was. He cocked his head to make certain; yes, it seemed they were dropping from hyperspace. Apparently something was amiss...

"Dro-" he began, then stopped himself. Clattered his mandibles. After all, this was Jasyn's ship, and he was the Master of it. Perhaps he had some good reason to drop them from their continued ripping between the fabrics of spacetime itself.

"To join others now will I go," he amended, not wanting to alarm the Lady unless there was good reason to do so. And after sensing the degree of self-involved narcissism combined with hints of a power he wanted to remain far away from, he certainly did not wish to risk angering the Lady's counterpart.

"Back soon will I be."

Clacking his mandibles, he headed from the mess, pausing a moment in the corridor outside, and then headed forward to the cabin. This would, after all, be the most logical place to gain a quick assessment of their situation: if the other two men weren't there, then, it would seem, they were in deep, deep doo-doo...

He scurried along, hoping they had a hydrospanner should his services be required, and soon gained entry to the sleek and gleaming cabin of the ship.

...then continued one with the ruse, at least for the moment. As he looked at the Verpine, he shook his head. "I don't know what the Hell is going on here," he growled, eyeing the navcomputer suspiciously.

Funny, it was pretty easy for him to come up with that supsicious look rather naturally...

"All our systems are go, but the ship's computer is going spastic; I can't get the navcomputer up and running again, not right now."

He sighed, shaking his head, knowing that the string of commands he had placed in the computer would render her useless until they could reprogram the entire thing. He could do this, of course, but it would take some time...

...and it would take landing the ship. "We're gonna have to land her," he then said, looking towards the Cricket, praying that he could get him on he and Cazun's side of the fence.

And hey, the Cricket had helped them out back in the day, on that one world where they had bumped into Yaoksi...

...and then when they ended up protecting Galen on Sullust. Surely he would understand the very logical rising doubts they had...

They could have plowed through the center of a planet, or a star, or tangled with a gravitational wave...

It would make any sane Cricket shudder... if one could. But all he could do was clack his mandibles a couple times more before addressing Jasyn.

"Ahhhhh...I don't know," Jasyn said honestly. "Seems we can make our way via realspace to Nkllon, which is about 10 standard hours away from our current location," he said, turning back to the navboard which was lit up like the skies of Coruscant. "I'm gonna at least shut down the majority of the systems on the computer, just leaving the navcomputer up so we can get where we are going," he then observed.

He paused then, working a bit at the controls. After some time he managed to deactivate at least some of the blaring red lights on the navboard. Only then did he turn to look at Cazun, and again once more to the hovering Verpine. "K'khil..."

He trailed, trying to decide on what to say. Then he settled with, "What're they doing back there?" he asked, pointing a thumb back over his shoulder, clearly indicating Graysith and the Master. "I mean, do they realize we've fallen out of hyperspace?"

"Know not much I," he finally replied. "Of the Dark Lord Phalomir do they discuss. Of--"

He paused a moment, debating with himself if they needed to know the slight shift in the Chosen Daughter's attitude toward the Master. He finally decided such an announcement stemmed more from subjectivity than actual, provable fact; at least for the moment there were no facts available to him other than what he felt he had sensed passing between them back in the mess hall.

He clacked his mandibles. "Of great interest, the story of Phalomir do they find. Not much else to report there is," he finished as he then began to sidle toward the console.

"Travel to Nkllon, unnecessary perhaps it is," he announced as he came upon it. He studied the remaining lights, the pattern they presented him. "Of such things, not a little knowledge have I.

Kriffing hell, how lucky they were to have a really good Verpine engineer onboard. What was K'khil going to do when he realized Jasyn had sabotaged the ship's computer with some faulty program commands?

Jasyn continued to look at the Verpine, mentally willing him to understand. "Look, pal, I've got a funny feeling about this Master character...

...and well more than enough interaction with him not to trust him."

Or Graysith, for that matter, came his unspoken addendum.

"You don't find it at all odd he managed to be on Bespin, where we found Graysith, conveniently at the same time we were there looking for her?"

He turned back to Jasyn as a flash of engineer's acuity came rushing through him.

"Crippled, this ship is not."

The words dropped from his mandibles without so much as the slightest hint of emotion; it was as if he was merely giving instructions to an underling about how to repair a balky core flux generator. But though emotionless, those mere five words carried a galaxy's worth of meaning on their backs.

For the first time he eyed the man with more than his usual engineer's eye.

He paused, hoping te Verpine could at least follow what he was about to say. "I don't trust the Master any further than I can throw him, and Graysith, well...

...I've seen her waffle back and forth between the best ally and the worst enemy. And now we are headed right to the homeworlds of the Sith. I'm really uncomfortable with all of this, especially with the Master here."

He paused, watching the Verpine keenly. "And you know something of this too, for I know from what I've heard you knew Galen when she was with Tarnus. You must know something of Graysith's other, less than pleasant, side. And now she's back there having a nice chat with the Master."

Jasyn paused, scowling. "How touching."

...and then turned to face the two men.

"With you am I, this Master trust I not," he finally admitted, deciding to return honesty with honesty. "Great pain, has he brought. His own son, to evil has he given."

He paused again, his mandibles clattering like castanets now as the incongruities he had witnessed in the mess hall mere moments before now reminded him that perhaps they were all treading upon very thin ice. For Verpines treasured their eggs, revered life, in their own coolly, logical manner. To learn that anyone could actually give away his own blood...

Well, that was completely unfathomable to him.

"But, empathetic to him, the Lady has become," he then went on, now taking a step forward to scrutinize the console again. "Felt I this; feel things, we Verpine can."

A chitinous manipulatory appendage reached out, stroked the cool dura-plast of the console, as if by that act alone he could put aright whatever it was that Jasyn had done. He was no fool; he knew that some form of sabotage had just occurred here.

And now it would seem he himself would have a choice to make...

"Loves her, he does," he said in apparent non sequiteur as he turned back to face the two men once more.

"The Dark Lord, Phalomir. Into my care, She did he place. My care; against this Master would I keep her from harm. But empathy feels she for him now...

"Confused am I."

He shouldered forward to stand beside Jasyn. Spoke to him, though his eyes never left K'kihl.

"Hey buddy! Don't lose sight of the forest for the tree!" he reminded roughly, his voice a harsh, cracking whisper, but one loud enough for the Verpine to clearly hear.

And understand. And then he spoke directly to K'kihl.

"I don't think she needs you any more, pal," he said, thinking back to her sudden change from damsel in distress to Empress of the Galaxy, ordering people around like they were nothing but pawns for her to play with.

...or perhaps not willing to acknowledge that she didn't.

But he had no opportunity to say that, at least not for the moment as Cazun got to his feet and took his own stance.

"Hold it one minute there, pal," Jasyn said, looking to Cazun. After all, as suspiciious a bastard as he could be, he trusted K'khil with everything he had, knowing full well of things he had done in the past, and of some of what he knew. "K'khil has always stood with us, and is a friend."

He paused then, looking to the Verpine. "And he has a point," he said in his direction, now referring to what Cazun had just said. "Consider her, really consider her, and all she has done. I agree, Phalomir probably loves her...

...but now it would seem that perhaps he is the one Sith who really doesn't have a clue in Hell what he's up against. You've already stated your doubts about the Master...

...but what about her?" he questioned, clearly meaning Graysith. "How can she be empathetic towards the Master, considering what he has done to the one who she supposedly loves?"

"There ya go!" he finally blurted. "What did I say? Watch out; now our friend here has ya thinkin' all softy about these guys; sheesh pal, have ya firkin' forgot what we were just talking about?"

He glared at the Verpine, tensing himself in case he would react to this by deciding to take off and try to get back to the others. If he did...

Well, no matter what Jasyn had said, no matter how much he trusted him, well...

"Indeed, friend am I," he asserted, wagging his head toward Jasyn but directing his words toward the antsy miner.

"Trees and forests; such analogies understand I not," he went on. "But explain please, what soft thoughts there are of which you are afraid. What words have you spoken, that afraid you are this one would forget?"

One raised appendage lowered and indicated Jasyn with a little wave.

He studied Cazun, then turned to Jasyn.

"Some conversation, have I missed?" he finally finished as he warily lowered both arms and slowly approached the two men. He came to a halt before them.

"Help would I, if knowledge I had. For friend indeed you are, and have been."

That manipulatory appendage now plopped on Jasyn's shoulder, and gave it a carefully applied squeeze.

...how they have brought themselves all forward into this time and place and have all this uber-powers. Talked about how they seem to know about the incoming Yuuzhan Vong, and have known about them even before this Master creep showed up," he continued. "I've just seen them all waffle back and forth between friend and foe way too many times, and I can't keep pretending that I trust them...

...particularly not him or her," he added, pointing back towards the mess to indicate Graysith and the Master. "We were just speculating as to why in the Universe, with all the powers that the Sith have, they would need anyone else here at all. Or if just maybe, since they were once overrun and destroyed by the Dark Jedi and in the future were apparently defeated by the Yuuzhan Vong...

...if just maybe they made an alliance with the Vong to come and wipe us all out. How else would they know that the Vong were coming now to this time and place too, as they have managed to do already themselves?"

He shook his head, scowling. "I don't like it, not one little bit. We've been relying on them far too long, especially with all of these damnable unknowns related to them."

He sighed. "I need to get back to the Boss, and the others."

And talk some bleeping sense into them all, came the final mental addendum.

"A problem, it would appear, with the navicomputer there is," he finally said, now moving forward to fiddle somewhat lackadaisically with the console.

"From hyperspace, have we dropped, and to Nkllon must we go. There full repairs to affect."

He turned around, and nodded to the pair.

"To the others I go, this unfortunate state of affairs to announce--?" he ended, but with a clear query in his voice.

Clearly he wanted their full opinion and approval before he returned to do his best to help the ruse along.

...or if they actually realize that we've fallen out of hyperspace and no one has said anything of it," he ended with a shrug, quirking a brow in Cazun's direction, clearly wanting his input as well. At the same time he wondered just how they were going to proceed once they got to Nkllon too...

Cazun nodded roughly, slapped one hand on Jasyn's shoulder, and after a slight pause slapped the other on K'kihl's chitinous one. There it held just a fraction longer than did the one on Jasyn's, as if transferring the unspoken message to the Verpine to not try anything funny. For while Jasyn might know the chittery Cricket, Cazun as yet did not.

"Let's go, then."

With that they stepped out, heading back toward the mess. As they moved along Cazun whispered to Jasyn:

"So, what's the plan, buddy? You know anyone on Nkllon with a ship we can use to get away on? Or at least have a way to contact this Boss Man of yours?"

He trailed and froze mid-step. "Oh bloody Kriffing Hell. They are all headed to one of the Sith worlds, where one of my buddies is imprisoned..."

He trailed, scowling. "...or worse."

"The Sith worlds?!"

It was all the miner could do to keep from snorting. He sidled closer to Jasyn, keeping his voice very low, for fear the others might choose that moment to come upon them.

He paused, making quick work of using his wristcomm to quickly pull up Terrin's secured frequency and type in a quick message:

Terrin; change in plans here. We need to talk. Headed for Nkllon here and trying to get back in contact with you ASAP. Are you still enroute to K'eel Doba?

Leaving his message at that, knowing Terrin would respond soon, Jasyn sent it on its way across the secured channel and refocused his attention on following K'kihl to where Graysith and the Master were talking about Fates knew what.

How they were going to take over the Universe, no doubt, came the black thought of a particularly annoying shoulder-devil.

And Jasyn had to wonder how accurate said thought truly was.

Not headed towards K'eel Doba any longer; headed for Mandalore, to hopefully make alliances with others.

Terrin paused. Yeah, others who were not Sith, for once.

Thinking we might need to start spreading our wings, and relying on the Sith a little less. I'll keep you posted. Have you found Graysith?

“To tell the story of Phalomir,” he said, “you must first understand the story of the Sith.”

He anticipated the reaction of the Dark Lady, and paused a moment to allow her annoyance to pass. He sat and leaned back against the wall.

“Your involvement with the Sith has been well noted,” he continued. “But how much have you truly discovered about thus great race? You know of the powers of the All, and you know of the tight bond between all Sith and the collective forces that bind them, that which we call magick. But the story of the Sith is vast and long, our race existing for thousands of years before mankind crawled out of the swamps and took to the stars. We were a race of warriors, of magicians, but most of all conquerors. And we ruled all.

“But our folly as a race was obvious. We wanted more, and we wanted to keep what we had. There was always new technology, new ways to infuse magick into it, and finally, there was the discovery of the All. It was a miracle – none would ever dare to oppose us again. But not all of us relished this thought. If a race could be all powerful, where was the glory? Where was the challenge? No, this could not be allowed. So those of us would opposed the use of the All formed a league, and charged our brightest with the task of finding a way to control it.

“ Yes, you know this part of the story. Phalomir told you. It was Trelanicus, the Sith he thought was his father, the Sith who forged the Eye of R’lous. But that rebellion failed, you see, and Trelanicus died, locked away in a bunker on an outlying planet. But his assistant did not die with him. No, his assistant had studied the All, had learned some of its mysteries, and was the test subject in the forging of the Eye. His assistant knew the basics on how to open portals, and in a desperate attempt to escape the fate of his master, the assistant opened his first portal. Sadly for him, it was into the Darker Realms.

“He was the first living being to ever cross into that realm, and for that he was a novelty. Being an opportunist, though, he struck a bargain with those forces. I won’t go into detail, but suffice it to say he quickly learned much more about the All, including how to travel through time itself – a secret he kept from all others. His part of the bargain made him an agent to the realms, and no longer a slave to a physical realm, or a rebellion, he took on a new name. He would never serve again, and would be forever known as Master.”

He paused, allowing a few seconds to pass.

But then another thought struck her:

What is found can be lost... and indeed then found again by another...

She calmed the Glyph further, crossed her arms, and gave her locks a little toss. Tried to regain her normal state of annoyance toward the Master, but found that somewhat difficult to achieve. Settled instead for momentary apathy, which at least for the time being quite effectively squelched the little flicker of empathy toward him that had been struggling into life. Even when another thought lifted its head in the attempt to push this away:

No one is simply an agent of those Realms. Ever. A "master" of nothing, this one is truly nothing more than a slave to them, but one with power...

She tucked that new insight away for future reference, where it settled down for an amiable chat with memories of what that heinous place had done to her own daughter. Then gave the waiting Sith her undivided attention.

"Leave the ship to those who manage such things," she stated flatly.

"Continue."

“I understand your confusion, and doubt,” he said. “As it was, those who practiced the All were few in number. And I knew they could not control it forever. It corrupts, turns brother against brother… they had to die. And so they did.”

He paused a moment, reflecting.

“I took on an assistant of my own, Thoran. He was a cunning, devious lad. Once a Sith, now a shadow in the Realms, but his talent was clear and he was given to me. He helped me rid the Sith of the All, for what I thought would be for good. And then those powers that be within the Realm wanted to collect on me. They wanted to end my career early, so to speak. So I used my new tricks and escaped with Thoran into time. We had many lovely adventures together.

“But I made the mistake that nearly every male at one time runs into. I met someone, nature took its course, and I was suddenly given a son. I had little time to contemplate settling down, though, for my past caught up with me and I forced to face my old friends from the Darker Realms. I had no chance to flee this time, and to make amends with them I did some work – you see, it takes much energy for the realm of the dead to influence the realm of the living, they need folks like us to do their work for them. They had a target in mind, whether it was part of a master plan, or simply to punish me. But I helped them… but you must understand that it was to protect my son, to hide him from them. I had no choice.

“So I ushered in the Dark Jedi and destroyed the Sith.”

Got Graysith, but are having some ship difficulties, he keyed in. Also have the Master with us.

Leaving his message at that, Jasyn hit send and let it spiral across the Universe towards Terrin's secured frequency.

((OCC: Jasyn's message will be received in Where Will You Go in this same forum.)))

Two.

During this, Jharmeen didn't so much as utter one word. Didn't move one muscle. Didn't even so much as blink. But inside her a volcano was beginning to seethe, one which was starting to spew forth lava and ash, blasting her momentary empathy toward the Master into ash, pummeling her carefully guarded apathy into dust. It built inside, slowly for the first nano-seconds, then with rapid-fire force, growing in strength and certainty until it was nothing less than a veritable pyroclastic event, hovering on the razor's edge of explosion.

She blinked, holding it at bay.

This one is crazed. Truly, psychotically mad.

The knowledge flowed through her, arming her, tensing her will.

He states it was to protect his son, yet he has used him as barter with the Dark Realms. And the egomaniac has the unutterable gall to claim to be the source of the Dark Jedi.

He does not even know what they even are.

She gave him one final look, then let the Glyph explode. It filled the room with its glorious radiance, blinding him to her, giving her the cover she needed as in one smooth movement she whirled and leapt. She gained the doorway in that one agile bound; in the next fleeting moment she was in the corridor, looking right, looking left...

...to see them stopped dead in their tracks, Jasyn's hand holding something to his lips, the others hunkered close like animals caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle.

"No time!"

They had to go, had to get away, fast. Without giving any of them time to so much as draw in a deep breath, she threw back her head, and throwing out her left hand, forefinger and little one pointing outward, the others curled against the palm, she made a unique twisting motion.

Behind the little group the very fabric of spacetime shrieked as it was ripped, taken unto itself and coiled into something that roiled with a greeny-golden otherness, all at once powerful and beautiful and lethal as a hunting dianoga.

"Go!" she screamed, then took off herself, leaping toward them now, running, arms outstretched toward them as if she was a mother reaching to embrace her children. Her arms touched their bodies, her momentum did the rest.

The Portal she opened shrieked once more, then accepted the sacrifice and allowed them entry. Seconds later, after they had passed, it snapped closed, leaving behind no sign they had even been there.

((OOC: Follow Graysith, Jasyn, Cazun and K'kihl into Another Shade of All in the "Jedi/Sith" forums, thank you.))

Darkness.

“And then once again I escaped through time,” he shrugged. “But this time with my son. I went to the future again. This time on a desolate world, now ruined by the Dark Jedi, but hospitable enough for me to use my powers to create a home. Labs, rooms, a hangar. I raised my son there, until they found me again. And this time I took us all to a time yet to come. I didn’t really know how far I had taken us, but the Sith were restored. The worlds were thriving, and I found a quiet little place to settle down. Until they came – the Vong.”

He waited.

Silence.

He scowled, and concentrated, the darkness ebbing as his eyes healed. He saw he was alone.

“Hmph,” he said. “I was just getting to the good part.”

He stood, walking to the cockpit and seeing it empty. The void of space broken in the main viewscreen by the planet looming in the distance.

“Alone again,” he sighed. “But not for long. Phalomir is alive and whole, which means there is still hope.”

His eyes flashed a bright red as a smile curled on his lips.

Interesting.

He placed his hand on the console and stretched out with his feelings. There was nothing wrong with this ship. A smile traced along the curves of the Master’s lips. His respect for this human had risen slightly. He scanned the control board and noted the condition of the lights.

“Clever,” he said. “But it takes more than deliberate mal-programming to keep the Master at bay.”

He thought first of using his powers to fix the problem, then hesitated. No, there was no hurry. And the occasional use of manual labor was good for the mind, no? Plus, it would allow him time to clear his head, to think of his next move.

Although, in reality, that was already clear.

He keyed in commands, his fingers deftly working the keys. It was so mundane, yet the tactile sensations that shimmered through his skin were pleasing. The negative reaction from the nav computer, however, was not.

He scowled, his thoughts moving away from his unsuccessful reprogramming to now recall the earliest days of his mad existence. He had not completely lied to Graysith, although the truth was stretched a bit. He was, after all, a colleague of Trelanicus and helped to create the Eye of R’lous. But as for the rest… meh. It didn’t matter what was true anymore. The Eye had served its purpose, for it had incubated Phalomir and conveniently died. Never mind that wrong Phalomir was given the key to the Darker Realms, the real one was still alive and still had the same potential.

But the poser had to go. Yes, the clone was still powerful, but the Master knew something that the clone did not.

More to the point, he could Shayla something that the clone could not…

The computer beeped its contemptuous tones again, indicating another failure. The Master paid it no mind, waving his hand over the console. The lights all went blank, and in a moment came back all green.

Go with your strengths, he thought. And when all else has failed, return to the beginning.

He smiled again, staring at the view screen. A swirling shape began to materialize in space, beginning from a pinpoint and spiraling out to a size that would allow the entire ship to pass though.

The Master guided the ship forward into the Elseness, the portal closing behind and leaving no trace that it was ever there.

((OOC - Follow the Master into "Motes in an Electric Eye" in the Jedi/Sith forum))